Developing apps for wear OS

Wearable tech is rising in popularity year by year. A couple of years ago, you’d only find a handful of wearable options on the market. It’s certainly a rising trend, and this brings along all sorts of opportunities for app developers. With platforms like Google’s Wear OS, we now have the chance to create entirely new apps specifically for wearable tech.

What types of apps are ideal for Wear OS?

The thing about smartwatches and wearable technology is that they’re limited in terms of what apps work well with this operating system. While Wear OS is capable of great things, there are merely some apps that won’t be practical for a piece of wearable technology. For example, mobile games are too hard to develop for this small screen space, and people are unlikely to want to play a game on their wrist!

Instead, if you’re interested in developing apps for Wear OS, then your attention will be drawn to options that are more suitable for these wearable devices. Below, we explore a few options that make a lot of sense and can help people get more out of their wearable tech:

Health & Fitness Apps

When you look back at the early days of wearable technology, fitness was a central part of things. Most companies developed smartwatches with built-in heart-rate monitors and step counters, giving users the chance to stay updated with their health/fitness goals. As app development platforms have improved – along with the technology inside these devices – it opens the door for a range of different health & fitness tracker apps.

These work very well as they can display things like calorie intake on the watch screen to show users how many calories they’ve consumed and how many they have left in their daily allowance. The same goes for calories burned, and you can even add foods via the watch as well. This type of app is perfect for Wear OS as it displays simple pieces of information whenever you need to see them.

Navigation Apps

Another great app-type for wearable tech is navigation. This includes apps that display maps of the area you’re in, along with somewhere you can track different destination. We’ve already seen apps where you can log where you parked your car and then use your smartwatch to show it on a small map and direct you back to it. Likewise, you can get city navigation apps that help you get from A to B.

Notes Apps

Having your notes on your wrist can be so convenient for many people. Therefore, many companies are developing apps for Wear OS that are all about notes. Make the notes on your phone/PC, then look at them on your watch. It’s an easy way to check your shopping list or take a quick peek at some notes during a meeting or speech.

Weather Apps

Most people check the weather every day, and it can sometimes be annoying having to open your phone, find the app, and check the weather. With Wear OS, you can develop apps that show you the weather on the watch face. Once more, it’s this focus on convenience that makes an app like this ideal for wearable tech.

Messages/Alerts

Lastly, one quick note on apps that let you see/send messages or alerts. These are perfect for reading emails on the move or checking out a quick message from your friend. Plus, a lot of wearable tech comes with built-in AI assistants, so you can speak into your watch to send a response right away.

How is wearable technology moving forward?

When it first started out, wearable tech seemed like something of a gimmick. Why would someone buy a smartwatch if it does what their phone does but on a much smaller scale? It was almost seen as an ego-boosting thing – people wanted to seem cool with this tech on their wrist.

However, it’s made huge strides, and there’s a real shift towards convenience more than anything else. As you can see from all the different types of apps you can develop on Wear OS, they’re all geared towards stopping you from reaching into your pocket/bag and using your phone. They offer condensed versions of mobile apps where you get instant information without having to do much.

If you want to start developing apps for Wear OS and wearable tech, then you need to think about ones that make life easier for the user. There’s no use developing an app that’s just a smaller version of a mobile app and not as good! Instead, it needs to offer something more than the mobile version and stop people from using their phones!