The Delayed Android Wear 2.0 Update: A New Alternative to Breathe Life into Your Smartwatch

Lawn here from Android Authority and with Android Weare 2.0 being delayed till next year, many are left wondering what to do with their Android Weare smartwatches. If you're looking for something to breathe some new life into your device, you might want to give asteroid OS a try.

Asteroid OS is a completely standalone Linux-based wearable OS that's not based on Android Wear in any way. It's also completely open source, which means other developers and manufacturers can take this and freely modify as they see fit. The current version of asteroid OS was created by a French computer science student and is currently running on one of the oldest Android Weare smartwatches, the original LG G watch.

Asteroid OS is still in its Alpha stage, so don't expect everything to work perfectly. You will notice a lot of bugs and freezes, but it still runs well enough to give you a good idea of what this new take on a wearable operating system is like. The OS also has its own app, which can be downloaded from their official homepage, allowing you to manage certain functions and pair it with your Smartwatch.

The asteroid OS app will allow you to manage certain functions and pair it with your Smartwatch. This includes managing notifications, which currently only work on the original Gatch watch at the moment. However, even though they do work on the Gatch, the Bluetooth connection isn't always stable, and the notifications disappear from the watch after a couple of seconds.

Currently, the app allows you to change the weather to your city of choice locate your watch, grab a screenshot, or Tinker with the notification settings. The weather settings and find my watch options are currently the only ones that work right now, while the other two are not supported just yet. However, the app will also tell you your remaining battery life on your Smartwatch, although this feature is not accurate at the moment.

All of your navigation will be done via swipes if you swipe down on the display, this will give you access to some quick shortcuts for screen brightness Bluetooth and turning vibration on or off. You can also see your remaining battery life from here, and if you tap on the lock icon it'll put your watch to sleep. If you double tap on the display, it'll wake it back up.

If you swipe to the left, you'll take you to your notifications. Swiping right will always take you back one step unless you're already on the main home screen and in this case, swiping right will take you to your recent app screen. This will let you quickly jump between apps and easily close them out by long pressing on them and tapping the x that appears.

Currently, there are no third-party apps available, but there are a handful of basic applications pre-installed which you can get to by swiping up. These include a calendar application, calculator, alarm clock, timer, stopwatch, music player, and weather application. All the apps have a very clean simple minimalistic look with white text and graphics and colorful backgrounds.

You can also access all the watch settings from here, which has all the basic functions that you would expect like the time, date, language Bluetooth screen brightness, and options to power off and reboot the watch. There's also some customization options for wallpapers and watch faces, and it comes pre-installed with a surprisingly decent amount of wallpapers and watch faces especially for such an early build.

If you're looking to install this on your smartwatch, you can find the instructions on the asteroid OS homepage, which will either link Down Below in the description or over at Android Authority. However, keep in mind that it's not for the faint of heart and does require knowledge on how to use ADB in order to install it. It's also not exactly daily driver material due to the bugs and battery life isn't all that good.

However, this Alpha release will give you a good idea of what the experience is like if you're familiar with ADB. If you're wondering, it doesn't override Android Wear, and you can easily revert back to Android Weare just by simply rebooting your watch. It's definitely a wearable operating system that looks like it has potential, and we hope to see more updates in the future.

We hope you enjoyed this quick look at asteroid OS, and if you did, please give it a thumbs up down below. We definitely appreciate it, and also subscribe to the channel which is also down below if you haven't already and check us out on social media Instagram Twitter Snapchat Google+ all that good stuff will be linked down below. Feel free to follow me on Twitter as well, and always check the website Android Authority.com because we are your source for all things Android.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat's up guys lawn here from Android authority and with Android Weare 2.0 being delayed till next year and no new Android Weare smart watches from companies like LG Motorola or Huawei Android Weare has grown a little bit stagnant at least until the update comes out if you're impatient or just looking for something to breathe some new life into your Android Weare Smartwatch you might want to give asteroid OS a try which we currently have running on one of the oldest androidare SM watches the original LGG watch so asteroid OS was created by a French computer science student and it's a completely Standalone Linux based wearable OS so it's not based on Android Wear in any way shape or form it's also completely open source which means other developers and manufacturers can take this and freely modify as they see fit something to keep in mind with asteroid OS is that it's currently in Alpha so don't expect everything to work perfectly you will notice a lot of bugs and freezes but it still runs well enough to give you a good idea of what this new take on a wearable operating system is like asterid OS also has their own app which you can download from their official homepage and this app will allow you to manage certain functions and pair it with your Smartwatch aside from the LG G watch asteroid OS also currently supports the Gat Urbane the Sony SmartWatch 3 and the Asus Zen watch 2 if you're looking to pair this to your phone for notifications Bluetooth pairing only works on the original gatch at the moment but even though it works on the gatch it's still very finicky the Bluetooth connection isn't always stable and the notifications disappear from the watch after a couple of seconds and will go back to telling you that you have no notifications and it doesn't seem like you can interact with or read the notifications directly from the watch at least for right now when the watch is connected to the phone you have several options within the app itself you can change the weather to your city of choice locate your watch grab a screenshot or Tinker with the notification settings but the weather settings and the find my watch options are currently the only ones that work right now while the other two are not supported just yet yet the app will also tell you your remaining battery life on your Smartwatch but at the moment it's not accurate so if you want to check your watch's battery life I would do it on the watch itself and not through the app since it's a touchbased wearable OS all of your navigation will be done via swipes if you swipe down on the display this will give you access to some quick shortcuts for screen brightness Bluetooth and turning vibration on or off you can also see your remaining battery life from here and if you tap on the lock icon it'll put your watch to sleep and you can double tap on the display if you want to wake it back up up swiping to the left will take you to your notifications if you manage to get notifications to work properly and swiping right will always take you back one step unless you're already on the main home screen and in this case swiping right will take you to your recent app screen which will let you quickly jump between apps and you can easily close these apps out by long pressing on them and tapping the x that appears there's no third party apps at the moment but there are a handful of basic applications pre-installed which you can get to by swiping up you have a calendar application calculator alarm clock timer stopwatch a music player and a weather application and all the apps have a very clean simple minimalistic look with white text and graphics and colorful backgrounds you can also access all the watch settings from here which has all the basic functions that you would expect like the time date language Bluetooth screen brightness and options to power off and reboot the watch there's also some customization options here for wallpapers and watch faces and it comes pre-installed with a surprisingly decent amount of wallpapers and watch faces especially for such an early build if you're looking to install this you can find the instructions on the asteroid OS homepage which will either link Down Below in the description or over at Android authority but keep in mind it's not for the faint of heart and does require knowledge on how to use ADB in order to install it it's also not exactly daily driver material due to the bugs and the battery life isn't all that good but this Alpha release will give you a good idea of what the experience is like if you're familiar with ADB feel free to give it a try and just in case you're wondering it doesn't override Android Wear and you can easily revert back to Android Weare just by simply rebooting your watch it's definitely a wearable operating system that looks like it has a lot of potential and I think it's worth keeping an eye on just to see where it goes from here as always thank you guys so much for watching this video I hope you enjoyed this quick look of astr w and if you did please give it a thumbs up down below we definitely appreciate it and also subscribe to the channel which is also down below if you haven't already and check us out on social media Instagram Twitter Snapchat Google+ all that good stuff will be linked down below and feel free to follow me on Twitter as well and as always check the website Android authority.com because we are your source for all things Android\n"