Google Reveals How the Android Wear UI Will Work

When Google announced Android Wear back in March, it illustrated the company’s seriousness about the wearable game. Since then, Google has dropped bread crumbs, slowly painting us a bigger picture of what’s to come with its mobile OS. A new video from the company, released just days before its big I/O conference, outlines some of the main interaction considerations for developers who will be building apps for the inevitable wave of new wrist worn gadgets.

The big takeaway? Interacting with our gadgets is about to get a whole lot simpler. Android Wear’s banner claim is that its interface will free us from the time sucking grid of icons on our smartphones. Instead, the interface will be glanceable; requiring users to engage far less time and attention to get the information they’re looking for.

ANDROID WEAR’S BANNER CLAIM IS THAT ITS INTERFACE WILL FREE US FROM THE TIME SUCKING GRID OF ICONS ON OUR SMARTPHONES. INSTEAD, THE INTERFACE WILL BE GLANCEABLE.

Here’s a quick look at how they’re doing it: The first thing you notice about theAndroid Wear interface is how little there is to notice. In the video’s example of the home screen, you see the time, weather and a “G” icon that will help you navigate to voice or text search. Users simply have to hit the button and say “Ok Google” to make any voice command available.

But it’s not a one-way conversation. Google’s depth of data makes it easy for Android Wear to build a smart context around each user, allowing wearables to know what’s important to a person and when it’s important. For example, based on your calendar or inbox your smartwatch could notify you a few hours before your flight and prompt you to check in.

Another important feature is device-to-device communication. Any notification you get on your phone, you’ll get on your wearable, too. Where a smartwatch diverges from the phone is how it presents that information. Android Wear relies on stacks, which allows developers to bundle multiple notifications together like an inbox, while pages allow more than one glanceable screen of information at a time for one notification. Think of this like flipping through a tiny ebook of notifications. You can combine stacks and pages and reply to any notification through voice activation.

The video covers pretty high-level stuff, but with LG and Motorola already building their own Android Wear smartwatches, you can bet it won’t be long before we get a proper look at what this OS is capable of.