Android Watches Here is a compact yet deep technical notes on watches on human arms for Google Android mobile smartphones and tablets, all in one page with clickable decision flowcharts. Wise tips, but without the sales hype and confusing generalities. Topics are presented in a sequence determined from a meticulous analysis of the subject. Related topics elsewhere on this same website (WilsonMar.com):   1. Android Index - Gurus, Websites, Books, Classes, Videos, Chats, etc.   2. Android Versions   3. Android Mobile Devices   4. Mobile Carrier Selection   5. Android Watches   6. Android Device Usage Basics   7. Android App Side-loading   8. Android App Markets and Reviewers   9. Android Utility Apps 10. Android User Apps 11. Android USB Connections 12. Android OS Rooting and Rooted Apps 13. Android App Frameworks 14. Android Java Eclipse Development Setup 15. Android Emulators 16. Android Java Programming and Testing 17. Android App Localization and Testing 18. Android Lifecycle and Testing 19. Android Data Management and Testing 20. Android User Preferences and Experience Features 21. Android UI Programming and Testing 22. HTML5 Features 23. HTML5 Coding and Testing 24. Android User Controls Coding and Testing 25. Android Hardware Control and Testing 26. Android Services Coding and Testing 27. Android App Monetization 28. Android App Marketing 29. Mobile VuGen Scripting for Load Testing 30. Lua Programming

Topics this page: Watches on Arms Your comments???

Site Map About this site Enter your search terms Web   Wilsonmar.com   Submit search form x`

Watches on Arms

Back in the day, in 1946, Chester Gould's cartoons had detective Dick Tracy use a "2-way wrist radio" watch to communicate with police.

Many who use cell phones don't wear watches to tell time, since we look so often.

But those who miss calls because they need to keep their phone on vibrate but can't feel the vibrations may appreciate skin-contact vibrations and hands-free, always-on glanceable notifications of incoming caller IDs.

• Check who's calling or silence the phone at the theater without having to dig it out of my pocket or purse.
• Remind you've wandered away from your expensive phone.
• Read texts
• Read to do lists
• meeting count-down alerts
• Read time (like a real watch)
• Alarm when too far away from expensive smart phone
• Take a photo remotely on a smartphone, to avoid the jitter caused by button pushing.
• Control music while your phone is safely in your pocket or back-pack (away from sight of stewardesses on airplanes).

Wearables

Watches are a subset of wearables, which include Google Glass.

Wearables are hot

Forrester Wearables Analyst Sarah Rothman-Epps.

Comparisons

Product	USD	Comm.	Thick ness	Res.	dpi	Controls	SDK API
Samsung Galaxy Gear	$299	Bluetooth LE 4.0	0.6" 30mm?	320 square 1.63-in. 4.14 cm	277	-	Jelly Bean for Note 3
SmartWatch	$130	Bluetooth	0.3" 15mm	128x110 & 128	?	9 touch areas 3x3 each	?
Open Watch	$100	Bluetooth	15mm	?	?	3 buttons	?
MetaWatch	$200	Bluetooth	0.6" 30mm	96x96	?	6 buttons	?
Wimm One	$299	Bluetooth & Wi-Fi	12.5mm	160x160	160	Swipe	7:5 Eclair OS 2.1
I'm Watch	$299 to $15,000	Bluetooth	15mm	240x240	220	Touch	1.6
Pebble	$150	Bluetooth 2.1 & 4.0 (Low Energy)	22mm	144x168	-	ePaper, 3 buttons	2.3+, iOS
Martian Passport	$199	-	-	-	-	Voice	-

YOUTUBE: Comparison of Pebble vs. MetaWatch 1.25

In 2008 an Apple iPod Nano held by a LunaTik watch band became iWatch.

Doubts

Concerns about these watches:

1. Does the thickness make my arms look fat? ;) The unwritten rule is that the thinner the watch, the more costly it is. That's why Patek watches are expensive.
2. Can I select the watchband that matches my style? Can I use my own standard 22mm watchband?
3. Will I remember to charge it so the device becomes useless if we forget? One more thing to keep charged up. Contactless charging, anyone?
4. Is it waterproof? I want to take a shower with it. 3-5 ATM (atmospheres)
5. Is communication with mobile phones reliable enough? Bluetooth© Serial Port Profile (SPP)
6. Does one have to push a button to activate the screen? Does it accept voice command?
7. Can I just shake my wrist (using accelerometer information)? Example: One shake (back and forth) to ignore call, 2 shakes to pick up call, etc.

Samsung Galaxy Gear

WARNING: At time of announcement on Sep 5, 2013, the Galaxy Gear only works with Samsung's new Note smartphone, the Note 3.

800 MHz processor
1.63 inch (41.4mm) Super AMOLED (320 x 320) screen
36.8 x 56.6 x 11.1 mm, 73.8g
IP55 dust and water resistance.
IP stands for International Protection against ingress of solid foreign objects and harmful ingress of water.
Bluetooth v 4.0 LE (low energy)
4GB user memory and 512 MB RAM
Li-ion 315mAh battery
1.9MP camera with autofocus, no flash

The claimed prototype had a screen measuring 3-inches diagonally, and uses Bluetooth for connecting to a smartphone and wi-fi to connect to the net.

On-device camera, speaker, and microphone are innovative.

But they use up energy, so smartwatch will last 10 hours max. before the 315 Ah battery needs recharging, which is likely to be frustrating for those who expect their watch to be smart enough to tell the time for an entire day.

MetaWatch

YOUTUBE: MetaWatch by Nicholas Gray.

The collection of smart watches from MetaWatch.org (@meta_watch) is made by Texas Instruments, so it's undertandably based in Dallas, Texas. But it has R&D in hipper Espoo, Finland. Their Kickstarter campaign ended Aug. 2012 with 1,767 backers giving a total of $309,436, to upgrade the software to iOS 6 and larger volume tooling, even though they have had almost all aspects of the watch for several years.

See CNET's review.

The watches' thickness and 96x96 monochrome face is so retro that its $299 Kare smartwatch was designed by Susan Kare, who designed many of the first Apple Mac icons (all monochrome) in 1982. Susan's design (shown at right) has 4 sets of widgets and a different set of icons than stock Metawatch Strata faces, which allow selection of widgets such as clocks, calendar, stock, weather. on the 3 vertical bands of equal height.

On the back of the watch, the 4 recessed metal knobs connect to the clip for charging.

A catalog of hacks (different watch faces) is at MetaWatch Dev Wiki. This openess has resulted in availability of several apps to control the watch face:

Android App	Stars	Size
Official	2.8	2.28 MB
Community Edition	4.3	0.98 MB
Noah Edition	4.8	1.99 MB

Official version

The left side of the picture showing the front and back of the watch is the face generated by the official Meta Watch Manager (MWM). It is cross-platform, available on both Android (from Google Play) and iPhones (from App Store) (both by MetaWatch Oy).

Cicada

The "10:31" face is from the 2011 Cicada framework and sample Android apps by Joe Hughes. It packs in a lot of information.

Noah Edition

For his own personal use, highly rated Android native developer Noah Seidman, author of the bgevolution.com blog, forked the MWM to produce
APP: MetaWatch Mgr - Noah Edition provides a modern Android UI's Holo Light theme, view animations, etc. on his Galaxy S3, HTC Droid DNA, and my Galaxy Nexus running Android 4.2.1.

Community Edition

Noah improves speed and reliability over Metawatch Community Edition Android app by grapefruitopia.com.

APP SOURCE: MetaWatch Manager for Android fork by Chris Boyle has not been updated since 2012.

Buttons

(D) Light		(A) Bluetooth Minutes
(E) Invert black/white Hour		(B) Seconds Day of week
(F) Link Alarm Status		(C) Menu Exit

The user interface of the MetaWatch is not a touch screen but 6 buttons to toggle ON/OFF, labelled A-F clockwise starting from the top right (2 o’clock). Use Button A to exit from viewing notification.

Except for the light button, what each button does can be different for each screen.

Setup

Its 4 day (5-7 day) charge is made possible from using dual Mode, Bluetooth 4.0 wireless technology (BR/BLE) and Dot Matrix OLED (Polymer Network LCD technology) always on display readable in sunlight.

On Windows PCs, install download Windows driver CDM20824_Setup.exe for the blue charging clip.

No need to make your phone "discoverable", just Bluetooth setting turned ON. On iOS, the watch is discovered automatically, with no pairing code. On Android, choose MetaWatch 1C (or SW12?) from a Bluetooth discovery list. Pairing code is four zeros: 0000.

The watch stainless steel case is rated at 3 ATM water resistance. But get a $13 Screen Protector Skinomi TechSkin.

It has a three-axis MEMS accelerometer with ambiant light sensor.



Metawatch has defined their MetaWatch Remote Protocol (MWRP) for GATT Bluetooth SPP or BLE connectivity over BR to communicate messages of up to 26 bytes at a time (excluding the 4 byte header and 2 byte CRC). The CRC is calculated using the MSP430 algorithm.

Sony Smart Extras Accessories SmartWatch and Headphone

As of this writing, Sony Ericsson's "Smart Extras" product line has two hardware accessories which communicate with an Android phone via Bluetooth:

• The Smart Watch for ( $129.99 in the Sony Store as model MN2SW) [ white papers]

  Comments on Amazon include use of proprietary 4-pin charging port, the screen being difficult to see under bright sun.

• The "Smart Wireless Headset pro" ( $129.99 on Sony Store) which plays music from a 2GB to 32GB micro SD card or a FM radio receiver. It also receives text and email notifications for display on its 128 pixels wide 36 pixels high black and white display. [ white paper]

TIP: A $6 protective skin for the watch face is wise because the face scratches easily (is not Gorilla Glass).

WEBSITE: http://www.sonymobile.com/global-en/support

To control host apps controlling hardware accessories:

• For Android devices prior to Android 4.0 ICS Get it within Google Play.
• For Android 4.0 ICS devices, download Smart Connect, the replacement for LiveWire.

The developer for these apps is "Sony Mobile Communications",

NOTE: The LiveWire manager service is pre-loaded on some Sony Ericsson smart phones (such as its Xperia X10 line).

BLAH: Sony, can you please use a diffent developer account for each product line? The same developer account publishes apps for Xperia, LiveKey, camcorders, etc.. So we have to wade through dozens of irrelevant ones to find what we need.

• Weather Widget powered by AccuWeather.com.
• Sony Extras for Facebook

Third-party developers offer these apps, whose code extends:com.sonyericsson.extras.liveview:

• $1.99 LiveView Manager from Smart Ideas to prevent disconnction of LiveView services. To not consume memory resources, it starts on bluetooth activation and stops on deactivation. On rooted phones> its "Fix LiveView Bluetooth" setting stops repeated bluetooth pair requests.
• StatusView for SmartWatch by TRITECH Inc.

LiveView / plugins for Android phone apps:

• PhoneWeaver LiveView plugin for the smart profile app from SBSH Mobile Software
• dekuyou stopped developement on its LiveView apps.

It uses-permission com.sonyericsson.extras.livewire.aef.EXTENSION_PERMISSION to use each host app communicating and controlling a specific SmartExtra hardware accessory via two Android content provider APIs:

• Registration and Capabilities API
• Notification API is used by simple event driven data providers to handle missed calls, SMS, MMS, show Facebook, Twitter, etc.

To program extensions (Android intents) to control it from an Android smartphone use Sony's Smart Extensions SDK and developer.SonyEricsson.com.

• Widget API controls display of a live image that reflects the latest information from an extension. on the accessory, such as the current song being played.
• Control API provides full control of the accessory screen, such as Used by the SampleNotificationExtension
• Sensor API makes the sensor data (e.g. vibrator and accelerometer data) available to the Extensions application.

If the control extension wants to continue receiving sensor information it should use SCREEN_STATE_ON, SCREEN_STATE_OFF, or SCREEN_STATE_DIM.

The SDK comes with code examples and an emulator, which does not support sensors.

OpenWatch

First launched in 2008, the $100 Sony Ericsson MBW-100, MBW-150, and MBW-200 (Evening Classic) 15mm thick Bluetooth watch (created with Fossil) claims a 7-day charge. its 3-buttons can pause and play music, skip songs forward and backward, control volumes using Bluethooth Audio/Video Remote Control Profile (AVRCP).

APP: Openwatch Manager from smartmadsoft.com

It broadcasts these intents:

com.smartmadsoft.openwatch.command.BUTTON_FF
com.smartmadsoft.openwatch.command.BUTTON_RW
com.smartmadsoft.openwatch.command.BUTTON_PLAYPAUSE
com.smartmadsoft.openwatch.command.BUTTON_VOLUME_UP
com.smartmadsoft.openwatch.command.BUTTON_VOLUME_DOWN
com.smartmadsoft.openwatch.action.ENVELOPE
com.smartmadsoft.openwatch.action.TEXT
com.smartmadsoft.openwatch.action.VIBRATE

Cookoo

WiMM

wimmlabsinc channel
Slashdot Functionality review
Slashdot Hardware review
The $299 WIMM One launched Nov 2011 from the Silicon Valley has a 22g 12.5mm thick 1.4 inch 160 dpi 160x160 pixel 16-bit color swipe-sensitive screen (showing 8 lines of 13 lower case x's at Arial 12-point proportional font) plus a magnetometer and up to 32GB of storage for 30fps videos. Its wi-fi connection (to full Android handsets) may avoid the Bluetooth connection plaguing previous attempts. It charges via a paddle with micro-USB plug and a 14-pin accessory connector accessed by their hardware SDK. WIMM plans both a validated and Alpha Test Lab stores for micro apps.
APP: WIMM Companion enables forwarding of incoming SMS texts and Caller ID to the module (watch) and provides mobile access WIMM's module owner website and Micro App stores.

Unified Remote Preview on the WiMM is a port of
APP: Unified Remote Full $4 from Unified Intents (in Sweden) controls a server program controlling a PC with programs such as PowerPoint and Spotify, iTunes, etc.
APP: Unified Remote FREE controls just Windows Media Player and YouTube.

WARNING: Uninstalling micro apps requires the ADB uninstall command.

The WIMM framework SDK installs in the Eclipse add-on folder to leverage Android SDK 7:5 (Eclair OS 2.1) but their emulator is created for dev. by the emu.cmd script in the tools folder.

Below is a demo script of their UI rules:


• The menu landing page are 96x96 pixel app icons
• Single finger swipe down pages down one screen or returns to menu or the watchface.
• Two finger down swipe within an app gets the watchface. At the watchface goes into standby.
• 15 seconds of inactivity enters standby passive mode with greyscale screen
• Double tap on watchface to swiitch to night mode (white number on black background).
• Long press on watchface for watchface selection.
• Single finger swipe down on watchface reveals the alarm level.
• Single finger swipe up on watchface returns to apps menu
• Single finger swipe left or right on app menu pans among list of apps.
• Double tap on app icon launches app.
• Single finger swipe left to go back (no hardware button for this)
• Single finger swipe right pages to a different category column or back to menu
• Tap buttons need to be at least 40x40 pixels
• Horizontal spinner is used to enter text, but is not recommended
• Single finger swipe down in app exits app to the apps menu

I'm Watch

WEBSITE: I'm watch from Italy and Santa Clara is powered by Android 1.6.
i'm Watch - Enjoy The Future

The watch has more dense 220 ppi on its 1.54-inch 240×240 pixel colour TFT display.

Like the Nano, it has a 3.5 mm headphone connection, Microphone, Built-in speaker. 64MB of memory, 4GB flash storage Its Li-Po 350 mA battery powers a Freescale IMX233 CPU up to 48 continuous hours and 30 hours with Bluetooth use.

But it's limited to Bluetooth networking (no wi-fi).

Prices range from 299 Euros for a silicone band to 15,000 Euros for a band with White Gold and Diamonds.

Pebble

GetPebble.com sells a Pebble Watch for iPhone and Android ($150 at Best Buy) after a delay to supporters at Kickstarter.

The Pebble is less power hungry than watches with older technologies. Because it uses Bluetooth 2.1+ EDR and 4.0 (Low Energy) and has a e-Paper LCD screen, it is supposed to work for 7 days without recharge. Its custom charging cable has a magnet like power cables on Macs.

Although its 144x168 pixel face it is meant to be readable in broad daylight, some complain that its glossy surface has a glare. Flick for back-light.

It comes with a rubbery wristband, but that can be replaced with another standard 22mm band (unlike Sony's custom band).

As of this writing, it's not plug-and-play. One has to download an app for iPhone or Android.

BLAH: The watch doesn't come with a default watch face, so one has to be downloaded. This will likely be an issue with those used to buying working watches. Dire warnings about the potential of 3rd party developers rendering a watch useless makes it scary to use. Several websites offer .pbw files which hold apps running in the watch. Watch apps are available from various stores:

• myPebbleFaces.com

Among the more popular watch apps are:

• Canvas for Pebble by Steve Penna
• Glance for Pebble by Finebyte in th UK

The Pebble's 3 axis accelerometer with gesture detection allows it to recognize arm movements as commands. So with the right programming, the Pebble can play a sound to enhance a punch, or control your PowerPoint presentation.

Martian Watch

$299

OLED display. Has a microphone and speaker, like Dick Tracy.

Leech mode lets you know when you've wondered away from your $700 smartphone.

CNET review

Others?

I would appreciate knowing about them. Email me!

As of this writing, we are awaiting the Apple iWatch.

Cookoo ?