Motorola, LG, Fossil First Brands To Launch Android Wear

Shortly after Google announced Android Wear this morning,Motorola, Fossil and LG came out with their own associated announcements. Engadget reports that LG’s “G Watch” (presumably for Google) will arrive next quarter and be aggressively priced.

Motorola, which was just sold by Google to Lenovo, islaunching a watch called Motorola 360 (see video below). Of the two it appears to be the more interesting one — because it’s round faced. However Motorola says “Moto 360 will be available in a variety of styles globally,” so there will probably also be rectangles.

Fossil is also an early Android Wear partner. What’s different with Fossil is that it’s a watch company getting into tech whereas the others are hardware companies getting into fashion.

It will be interesting to compare the features, quality and prices of these devices when they are revealed in the coming weeks and months. Design and price will be critical because presumably functionality and the UIs will be identical or nearly identical.

Poor design quality doomed Samsung’s initial Galaxy Gear watch. That has now beensuperseded by second-generation products, which have abandoned Android for Samsung’s proprietary Tizen.

My guess is that Samsung will have to re-evaluate and regroup again because the Android Wear watches (based on preliminary images) are likely to be both more “elegant” and user-friendly. (Interestingly, Samsung is also listed as one of the Android Wear partners.)

Fitbit, Nike FuelBand and a couple of other wearable fitness trackers have gained traction among consumers. They’re now potentially threatened by Android Wear as well, because fitness tracking and health monitoring will become integrated into these devices. I suspect Nike will integrate into Android Wear quickly.

The majority of existing smartwatches have not broken through to mainstream awareness or adoption. As with Samsung most of those companies, including Qualcomm, Sony and Pebble, will likely need to step back and adapt their products to a new market.

Assuming that Google and its partners do meaningful consumer marketing — and the watches are affordable and well-designed — we should see smartwatches hit the mainstream in the coming year. And if Apple finally launches its own “iWatch” the segment as a whole will benefit from broader consumer awareness.

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As LG, HTC Prep Smartwatches, Samsung Ditches Android On Its New “Gear” Devices

The promised Google and Apple smartwatches have yet to materialize but there are at least half a dozen other offerings already in the market from Samsung, Qualcomm (Toq), Pebble, Sony and a couple of others. None have broken through to mainstream awareness or adoption.

Samsung’s Galaxy Gear device was the most visible of this group of “1.0″ smartwatches. However it was rushed to market (to beat Apple) and generally panned by reviews. Simultaneously too ambitious and not ambitious enough, in terms of user experience and design, many were sold but it fell dramatically short of expectations.

Galaxy Gear sought, perhaps too expansively, to be a new computing platform for mobile developers. The new generation of Samsung’s smartwatch is called simply called “Gear,” ditching the “Galaxy” label.

Samsung also ditches Android in favor of its own OS Tizen for the new Gear devices, which include Gear 2, Gear Neo 2 and Gear Fit. That was a very interesting choice and once again suggests Samsung’s desire to have independence from Google.

The Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo are smartwatches very similar to Galaxy Gear in appearance and outward design. By comparison the Gear Fit is a fitness wristband. Samsung unfortunately didn’t discuss pricing for any of these devices.

Right now the most mainstream and popular “wearables” are wristbands such as Fitbit and Nike Fuel Band. It makes sense then that Apple, Google and others would lead with health-related functionality as they prepare their smartwatches.

According to the Wall Street Journal, LG is building the forthcoming Google smartwatch. LG made the Nexus 4 and currently makes the Nexus 5. The specifics of the anticipated Nexus watch’s capabilities weren’t disclosed.

HTC is also building not one but potentially two smartwatches according to Bloomberg. One may be based on the Qualcomm Toq reference design and the other is reportedly built around Google Now. A Google Now-based experience makes sense because it’s about contextual push rather than asking users to solicit information from a watch as they would a smartphone.

The winning smartwatches will offer value (sub $250), functionality and a certain level of aesthetic refinement, which arguably none of the existing designs have yet achieved.