Ian McGurren spends a week with Android Wear strapped to his arm
Watches eh? They're rubbish! Just telling the time and the date, maybe an alarm if you're lucky, but do they have any apps? Or a high-resolution screen? No, so by that extension they deserve to be cast from the hi-tech futureworld of 2015 like vinyl records, newspapers and the Teasmade. Thankfully, though, both Google and Apple have seen fit to bring this relic of technology into the 21st century, so what happens when the crusty old, precision-engineered wristwatch of the past meets bang-up-to-date, bleeding-edge technology?
The watch is something of a technological enigma in this modern world. Barely unchanged for centuries, bar the digital watch's introduction in the early 1970s, the device is a very good example of functional technology that has long since perfected itself and reached its engineering peak. In terms of its main function, a Swatch is as good as a Patek Philippe, though the vast difference in price will afford you a bump in handmade precision, complications and bragging rights. The point, though, is that neither owner would have lamented any lack of features, as both would have fulfilled the purpose of their purchase: telling the wearer the time of day.
This is the dilemma many have with smartwatches: do they really need to be smart? What does a smartwatch offer that a regular, cheaper watch cannot? After all, both tell the time, and that's pretty much a watch's remit. Seeing the various adverts for the Apple Watch and the Android Wear devices, it's clear that the manufacturers are keen to promote the smartwatch as less of a watch per se, and more as a second screen for your mobile device that happens to be on your wrist. In fact, calling it a watch may only cause to distract buyers from its real purpose.
I'm in the middle ground here. There are some stunning traditional analogue watches that are mechanical works of art, but I'm also from the era of the Casio calculator watch and digital watches with vacuum fluorescent displays, so a timepiece with fancy tricks appeals to me. But beyond having a shiny new gadget, can I justify a smartwatch to myself? I spent a week with an Android Wear device - the LG G Watch R - in an effort to understand just what it can offer me.
Which Watch?
Unlike Apple Watch, Android Wear is not a device but instead is a subset of the Android OS tailored for the smaller interface needed for watches. Therefore, in common with its bigger operating system brother, Wear is available on a selection of devices. Most cost around the £200 mark, with two coming out as the front runners - Motorola's Moto 360 and the device I used, the LG G Watch R. Why the G Watch R specifically? Easy: it's the only Android Wear device to feature an OLED screen. Not only does this extend the battery life by lighting only the parts of the screen in use at that time, but it's able to offer a true low-power mode, meaning the G Watch R can show a watch face at all times (like a real watch does) at little cost to the battery.
The Hardware
So how is the actual watch itself? Well, on the plus side, it looks and feels just like a watch and not like some technological curio strapped to your arm. On the negative side, though, while it does feel like a watch, it doesn't feel like a £200 watch or look like one for that matter. Don't get me wrong, it's well made and of good quality, but were it not smart, you'd hesitate to pay more than £50 for it. This isn't helped by the uninspiring leather strap, though LG claims any 22mm watch strap will work with it. The watch chap at the local market wasn't as convinced, though. Bottom line here - the G Watch R is technologically superb but uninspiringly designed, unless you like your watches manly and made of chunky plastic. On my not-quite-as-manly as-l'd-like wrist, it didn't look as good as my rather more fetching Skagen timepiece.
Looking past its watch attributes to the technology, and things perk up a bit. Standing out is the round OLED screen, as in round like a watch, not square like other smartwatches. Stylistically it's a hit, though practically it isn't quite as effective. The display is curtailed, and those apps that use the full square screen are cut off, not 'rounded' off. But, conversely, the rounded watch faces are far more effective on this screen, especially those that offer the low-power Always-On alternative time face. Coupled with the sharp 320 x 320 screen, this is the best interpretation of Android Wear so far.
Day 1 - About time
Popping the G Watch R from its very watch-like box, you get the device itself, along with a USB charger and the charging dock. It's not the dock itself that's the first bone of contention, the watch sits in it fine and doesn't move, but it's that it realistically restricts any straps other than buckled ones being used. An elasticated metal or bracelet style strap may look great, but you'll find charging a massive pain.
It stands to reason that Android Wear requires the use of an Android phone in tandem to do anything beyond telling the time, and the newer, the better. For my week, I had Google's own Nexus 6 to handle these duties, and it's certainly a device that could do with a smaller alternative method of use. What's more, it's Google through and through, so no blaming glitches on proprietary hardware or quirks of different software - from a Google Wear watch to a Google Wear app on a Google Experience handset, the chain is Google all the way.
Joining the watch to the phone is as simple as downloading the Android Wear app and pairing the watch to the phone. For me, the process was straightforward and quick, though others have found the app doesn't work so well for them, and that's a sticking point to the whole setup.
The setting up of the watch could be done from both the app and the watch itself. On the watch this is accessed by holding on the screen until the menu system appears, then flicking up or down. It works fine, though better for quick one-off changes. Any more in depth changes are better done on the phone itself.
Day 2 - Face off
If there's one thing that'll keep you tinkering with your watch in the first week, its the multitude of watch faces available. Those for the square-faced watches tend to be creative or look like reasonable copies of real watches, but it's on the round-faced watches like the G Watch R that they take on a whole new look. From Rolex to Casio G-Shocks, Mickey Mouse to Swatch, all are available and many look impressive. The most effective facsimiles are those less ornate, such as the classic digital LCD and VFD style from the 70s and 80s, simple designs that complement the hardware on which they reside. The more extravagant end of the market still translates pretty well, but while the watch face can look like a TAG Heuer, the actual watch is still black plastic.
Aping of other watches isn't where the true creativity lies, however. The real innovation is in those faces that cannot be achieved on traditional analogue or digital watches, including those customisable on the fly. Of these, the standout example is the oddly named Pujie Black, a face with a clutch of configurable parts that allows the user to easily build a personal watch face. It's simple to make them but vast enough to have a wide variety of modern-looking designs. There's even a repository of faces made by others if the imagination runs dry. Topping it off, not only can you build the regular face, but also the Always On face too, taking full advantage of the G Watch R's screen. After tiring of trying out many different copy faces, it was Pujie Black that I found myself returning to, eventually settling on a face that gave me the information I most wanted.
Day 3 - Wake up
Like any other Android Wear device, the G Watch R can't really do much without being attached to an Android phone, beyond a few basic watch-like functions. This is a shame, because I found my watch disconnected from the Nexus on more than one occasion. This wouldn't be so bad if it had independent use, but given the symbiotic relationship requires a connection to make its smart functions work, it meant I couldn't safely rely on the watch to be my sole source of notifications. Reconnecting the device meant rebooting the watch or even removing and adding the device to the Android Wear app on the Nexus, both of which were a considerable pain, especially as there seemed to be no reason for why the device would lose connection, even in the midst of updating watch faces. Sometimes this could possibly be blamed on the distance from the Nexus, but even then it would remain disconnected until rebooted / re-added, even when placed next to the device again.
As well as loss of notifications, those of you who use Google Now will know that the service relies on a web connection for the voice recognition to work its wonders. As the watch gets its connection to the internet via its ad-hoc connection to the host phone, not via wi-fi, it means that no connection means no replies, searches, navigation and more. This is annoying enough when you see the little cloud with a line through it pop up, but it's even more so when mid-task it just seems to hang without any notification at all, and only checking your phone's Wear app gives a clue that it has again become disconnected. For all its positives, this was my biggest source of frustration, and its frequency suggested a distinctive whiff of 'beta' about it.
Day 4 - Out And About
It's all well and good playing about with the watch to my heart's content, but to really see what it can do, it's better to go and find out if Android Wear can improve day-to-day life.
It wasn't a particularly warm day, so a heavy coat was called for, where my Nexus 6 will be somewhat deeply buried, and it's here that the first real advantage of the watch makes itself known: notifications on your wrist. The walk into town was punctuated by a few notifications from emails, text messages and WhatsApp, all of which partially popped up on the watch's screen. From here they could be swept up to read and / or to the side to ignore or reply. This was very helpful, saving rooting around in the pocket for a big phone, especially when a majority of the messages didn't warrant an immediate response.
For those that did, however, it was an ideal opportunity to try out the reply function. Being a small device, having a keyboard is impractical, so the only form of input available is voice activated, much like the voice input of the Google Now service. Here it's a case of swiping to the 'reply?' screen and dictating the reply. Simple in concept, but in practice it was quite hit and miss. Where replies were able to be kept to a single sentence, the system worked quite well, as long as you were able to speak clearly and didn't require punctuation or capitalisation (giving them away to recipients). If you want any more than one sentence, though, tough, because a few seconds pause constitutes the end of the message. Any mistakes also required starting again, plus I elicited a few odd looks talking into a watch in the middle of Marks & Spencer...
Day 5 - Appy Days
It's not mobile if it doesn't have apps, and the Android Wear platform is no exception. There are apps for the device itself, as well as regular phone apps that also add additional features to Wear watches. That said, there's not a huge amount just yet, though the release of the Apple Watch will likely lead to an upturn in these kinds of apps. Most on Wear at present are basic and reminded me very much of the Java MIDP apps on phones of the early 2000s. Apps, such as Twitter, had the feel of an RSS feed on a Nokia device; games were more a proof of concept than a serious distraction; and you'd expect a keyboard-free browser on a 320 x 320 circular screen to be as good as it sounds.
That's not to say there weren't some good apps, though these tended to be Google's own factory apps. Google Now is as good as it is on your phone - that is to say, exactly the same. Fitness, while not quite as fleshed out as Apple Health, is pretty accurate. The phone app itself isn't that great, though, with distance measured in steps rather than miles or km. The remote for Play music wasn't too bad either, if you were already playing music that is, otherwise you get the first playlist and no easy way to navigate your library.
Day 6 - Other Reactions
I'd had the G Watch R for a few days now, so it was time to see what others thought of it. If Google wants a quote from the person on the street, it would be this: "Is that one of them Apple Watches?" Yes, it's not even out and already Apple has cornered the public's awareness of smartwatches. The second quote would probably be "So what's it for then?", and this appears to be something even Apple hasn't nailed. What exactly is the point of a smartwatch? It's this that I struggled most with. I showed them the changing faces ("Ooh. It's not a real TAG though, is it?"). I showed them the replying to messages ("But can't you just answer it on the watch?" "No, there's no speaker" "Oh. The Apple one has a speaker though?"). I showed them the fitness, the navigation and more, all of which they raised eyebrows at until learning of the need for a phone for it to work in tandem with ("Surely it's just better to get your phone out, isn't it?").
It's safe to say two things. One: Google hasn't publicised Android Wear well enough for the man on the Clapham omnibus to be aware of it. And two: most of the public doesn't get smartwatches and, moreover, they don't care either.
Day 7 - Time Runs Out
I went into this experiment with an open mind, willing to let the smartwatch impress me if it could, either with its practicality or just with its futuristic allure. Certainly it's one of the most forward-looking devices I've had the experience in using for a while, a real look into the inevitable future.
Part of me loved it, especially having what is essentially a very cool watch with practically any face you can dream of. This was helped by using the G Watch R and its superb round OLED screen, an experience that may be diminished on cheaper, squarer hardware. That other bugbear of the wearable brigade - battery life - didn't rear its ugly head for me, though I had accepted a nightly charge was needed and that I would therefore not be using it to wake me.
But it's there that the experience ran aground. Even with an update to Lollipop 5.0 on both the watch and Google's own flagship handset, I still had connection problems from the first hour until when I took the watch off for the last time. Even when it worked, I experienced annoyances like the one-line limit to replies, having to look like a bit of a fool talking to my watch, and trying (and often failing) to justify it to onlookers.
Many of these issues may well be fixed in the future, though, as the platform grows and the hardware becomes clearer focused. It's all a bit hit and miss now simply because all the manufacturers are breaking new ground with these products. The other thing here is, like watches and like phones, the experience is very individual. I found the watch didn't add to my lifestyle much, but for those more active or those who travel more, the watch may eventually prove indispensable for their everyday lives.
There's a general view that smartwatches are a solution looking for a problem, and certainly for my week I found little to challenge this view. I enjoyed tinkering with the cutting edge of mobile technology but found nothing about it that I missed when it was over, beyond easy checking of notifications. It seemed odd for me to spend money on an expensive phone, only to then spend more on a device that allowed me to not look at that phone. This is the odd crux of Google and Apple's marketing too: "buy the watch so you don't have to look at the phone we also tell you is amazing to look at", and this is confusing the buying public no end.
In the film industry, there's a method of pitching a film known as the elevator pitch - summing up a film in the length it takes to ride a lift with a movie executive. If it can't be summed up succinctly in the 30 to 60 seconds, then it's unfocused, unclear and will fail the test. After my week with Android Wear, I still couldn't elevator pitch smartwatches to you, and I don't know if I'd want to either. Their purpose is unfocused, unclear and so far, they don't fail, but they don't quite succeed either. Maybe next year...