Wear Now

Awaiting the Moto360 Android Wear, I bought two Wear watches (the Samsung and the LG) for our application development team. After spending few days with the LG, I have to say this is the first wearable device that is not a gadget, but proves to be well integrated and useful. It still does not address a simple scenario of charging both the phone and the watch via a single cable and charger (well... it seems like even the simplest industrial design ideas require geniuses like Yves Béhar). But really the hardware is secondary in this experience.

What constitutes a smart watch is the software. And Google delivers on the promise. Of course it has a strong foundation of Google Now, which has been developed and polished for years, and is the most important ingredient to the success of the Wear platform. It sounds simply stupid Samsung is playing a game here with Tizen. I had Pebble. I had the beautiful Gear Fit hardware. But the official Wear is a night-and-day difference.

Yesterday walking the San Francisco streets, loud and crowded with tourists, with my poor English accent I could effortlessly speak to the watch thinks like "navigate to urban outfitters" and it was setting up the route or "take a note remember to check the alpha" and "remember to check the alpha" landed in my Keep notes.

Later "set an alarm at six thirty" and the alarm clock was configured accordingly. Voice command integration is phenomenal. So is the contextual handling of information by the Now engine. Both are the essential components of a wearable, simply done right on the Wear platform.