Android Wear: A Comprehensive Review of its Features and Design

One of the standout features of Android Wear is the notification system. Upon swiping through, users can access various notification cards that provide quick access to essential information. For instance, one can swipe right to turn all lights off or on, utilizing the Hue app's integration with their home lighting system. This feature allows users to control their ambient lighting with ease, creating a seamless and convenient user experience.

In addition to notifications, Android Wear also offers voice control capabilities. Users can use voice commands, such as "turn lights on now," to control their watch's functions, providing an added layer of convenience. Furthermore, the app that opens when clicking the watch face allows users to select specific lighting settings, including adjusting brightness, color presets, and saturation levels.

For those who prefer to manage their settings from a separate location, Android Wear offers its own companion app. This app provides access to various features and settings that can be adjusted on-the-go, including voice action settings, compatible apps, and additional settings for notification management, screen mode selection, and more. Users can also browse through the Google Play Store for compatible apps, expanding the range of available integrations with other smart devices.

One area where Android Wear excels is in its integration with various devices and apps. This feature allows users to take full advantage of their wearables by leveraging their existing ecosystem. For example, IFTTT (If This Then That) app support enables users to automate tasks and create customized workflows between their wearable device and other smart home appliances.

In terms of specific settings, the Android Wear app provides options for adjusting fundamental features such as brightness and notifications. Although some users may find navigating these settings to be less intuitive than expected, improvements in this area are likely to occur over time.

One notable feature of Android Wear is its compatibility with multiple devices from various manufacturers, including Samsung, LG, and others. This means that users can choose between different watches based on their individual preferences for design, features, and functionality. The LG G Watch, for instance, boasts a curved glass display, Super AMOLED screen, and wider watch face options.

However, some users may find the LG G Watch to be less comfortable due to its softer band and larger size compared to other models like the Gear Live. The Gear Live's metal face plate and curved glass display offer a more premium look, while its Lites class charging solution provides a sleeker design alternative. Additionally, the Gear Live has a built-in heart rate monitor that caters specifically to fitness enthusiasts.

In conclusion, Android Wear presents several compelling features, including notification management, voice control capabilities, and app integrations. While it may require some time for users to adjust to its unique interface, the benefits of this wearable technology make it an attractive option for those seeking a seamless smartwatch experience. Furthermore, its compatibility with various devices and apps ensures that users can leverage their existing ecosystem.

Overall, Android Wear has room for growth in terms of user interface design, but its versatility and integration capabilities set it apart from competitors in the market. Users who prioritize notification management, voice control, and app integrations will likely find Android Wear to be a highly satisfactory choice.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat's up guys Mike here the Detroit Board with a look at the Samsung gear live and the LG G watch both of these are running Android wear which basically means they're running essentially the same operating system but the hardware is a bit different so we're going to take a look at all three of them in this video nice III then because the LG G watch is available in these two colors and I thought it'd be kind of nice to take a look at them now the LG G watch retails for 229 the gear line retails for 199 you can buy this from the Google Play Store in terms of specs both watches are running the Snapdragon 400 processor clocked at 1.2 gigahertz with half a gig of ram and four gigs of internal storage and that's really where the similarities end now the Samsung is a 1.6 3 Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 320 by 320 that's the same as the gear 2 the LG is using a slightly larger display one point six five inches instead of one point six three inches this is an LCD IPS display with a resolution of 280 by 280 so slightly lower resolution but slightly larger display now the Samsung has a 300 million power battery versus the 400 million power bury in the LG G watch it also makes the LG G watch slightly heavier than the Samsung and slightly thicker but the Samsung watch is actually expected to get better battery life thanks to the Super AMOLED display alright so for our first unboxing let's go and take a look at the Samsung gear live and if you're familiar with the gear 2 unboxing and review I did earlier this is pretty familiar packaging alright so I'm just going to cut this seal right here alright so let's go ahead and lift the lid there we go there's the gear live and it's a little tray pull it out of here as you can see it's wrapped in plastic just like the gear 2 I reviewed earlier so let me go ahead and peel this off it'll tab here I have another piece of plastic covering the clasp so inside our packaging we have our wall charger you can see this is a fixed wall adapter with a micro USB charging port at the other end and then we have our charging cradle right here wrapped in plastic again very familiar to the gear 2 products so as you can see here this snaps onto the back and you have your little charging port on the side in fact let's go ahead and show you this on the back of the gear live you can see we have a heart rate monitor and our electrical connections for the dock just snap this on and plug it in and charge it now if you look at the krail you can see it actually leaves a little hole here for the microphone to work through the cradle when it's connected then you can see we have our kind of home-button along the sides of the gear and when you want to pop this off you just push here pops right off also tucked in here is some paperwork so we have health and safety and warranty guide for the Samsung gear as well as a quick reference manual and explore all of this and we set it up now before we take a look at the gear let's go ahead and get to the LGG watch so we can compare them we have the white and gold and the black version I think the black version is going to be the most popular and I don't think a lot of people are taking a look at the white version so I thought it'd be kind of nice to take a look at that so let's go ahead and crack these open at the same time I'm going to crack the seals right here all right so let's go ahead and lift the lids here so we have our black model and then we have our white model there we go all right so let's go ahead and pull out the black model here so you can see we have black faceplate black trim pieces and a black band we're gonna set that aside for just a moment and get to the white one here so as you can see here a white band with gold trim and a white back panel now we should have all these same accessories on the inside we have a wall adapter so there we go we have an LG branded Universal USB wall adapter unlike the fixed kill on the Samsung lunch and we have our magnetic charging dock which is a little different than the friction dock on the gear product so on the front we have a magnetic charging tray with the charging connections right there we have our USB charging port on the side and then we have this foot this allows us to stick the charger to a table so it won't move around when you're charging your watch I have to do is peel off the plastic that's back here like so and there we go and that's reusable so you can clean this up and stick it anywhere you want now I also get a Quick Start Guide in multiple languages and we're going to cover that in this video the white watch has the exact same accessories they are not color matched to the white they're still black alright so let's get to the launches all right so the LG G watch has a little more plastic than the gear so it's going to peel that off I think we also have some pieces along the side as well as some plastic on the back course same story with the black washes peel off the front panel and the back panel as well as the plastic along the side now turning on the gear life is pretty straightforward you have a power button along the side just tap that and it should begin the Buddha process I have it upside down here so you get that little animation like Android wear animation that's the same on the LGG watch and then we can go through the Sailor process now the LGG watch there is no power button but you can turn it on simply by document in the cradle and connecting the power and begins charging and wakes it up but if you want to power on the old-fashioned way there's actually a tiny little button right there that allows you to turn on if you have a paper clip or something like that or a sim ejection tool now if I press and hold that button it should start booting up here there we go let's go through the setup process here and select my language announce telling me to install Android wear on your phone so I'm going to take my LG g3 and now it doesn't have to be an LG phone just because it's an LG watch this will work with any Android phone that supports the Android wear app so let me go to the App Store here so I'm just going to search for Android wear I see the app right here it is a free app it's going to install it alright so let's get still up here and it's going to tell us a little bit about the features that are included with the software I'm going to click accept so right now the app actually sees three Android wear devices including the one I want to pair right here G watch 1ee C so let's go and select that alright so we just have to match the codes and we're going to click pair here and I also have to make sure that your phone's bluetooth is turned on so that's the first step now the first step here is to download the latest firmware first thing the app wants me to do is to enable notifications for Android wear so let's go to a notification settings and select Android wear click OK and we're good to go alright first up let's take a look at the Samsung gear live so this is running Android wear so as you can see here it's got that card viewer I'll take a close look at the operating system a bit later but as you can see here we have a 1.6 3 inch Super AMOLED display 320 by 320 resolution looks great off access with very bright vivid colors as you can see here with this nice curved metal faceplate which adds some sophistication to the design so it looks kind of like a traditional watch in many ways very similar to the gear 2 along the side you have something unique to the gear life which is a home button which allows you to either shut it off or take it to the home screen you have a microphone right here there is no speaker on this you get with the gear too if you open up the clasp here we have the Samsung clasp this is actually clasp very similar to the gear fit but different than the gear 2 so you can see here we have our heartrate monitor and the charging connections on the back for the snap-on cradle you can see on the side we also have these little fittings just above the microphone on the left hand and right hand side for snapping on that cradle now as you can see here these straps are removable so you can add your own straps if you prefer although as you can see here the design it's kind of integrated on the gear now if you look side on you can see that the glass panel is actually slightly curved at the ends here so it provides a little more of a jewelry like effect now just to quickly show you the difference between the gear 2 and the gear line both have the same display 320 by 320 super amoled and the design is very similar although a little different here you can see that the gear live is a little wider so it's got a taller design but still has its kind of same curved glass design you can see that we have a home button on the gear 2 and this is running Tizen versus Android wear Android wear is basically a universal operating system while Tizen is a Samsung exclusive so this only works with Samsung phones while the gear live will actually work with any phone running the gear live manager and the or the Android wear manager and is running Android 4.3 or newer you can see we also have a camera on the gear 2 with an IR blaster none on the gear life we also have a speaker on the gear 2 versus the gear live which has no speaker just has a microphone but we do retain the heart rate monitor on the back so we do have that feature which the LG G watch does not have the clasps are also different here this is more like the gear fit kind of a lower end class versus the one that's on the gear 2 here but of course the gear 2 is also $100 more expensive so this retails for $2.99 versus $1.99 for the Samsung gear live all right so we take a close look at the LG G watch on the back we have this plastic back panel which is color matched to the band so whites with the white and black with the black if you look along the sides you can see we have a metal band it's gold or champagne colored zombie white black on the black I think it looks a little more premium on the white malla just because it highlights the fact that this is a metal material while this just kind of looks like black plastic you can also see we have a glossy plastic bezel that goes around the glass display you can also see that metal band fastens the watch band now if you look along the top you'll see that little pinhole microphone for interacting with Google now with voice recognition we also have our color matching watch class you can see gold and black this is a pretty traditional watch class we're all familiar with it's a little different than what Samsung is elected to go with which is similar to the fit so basically you just line up these pinholes snap into place and resize it as needed I don't really like this as much as the traditional class just because it's kind of harder to get the right fit with this now if you look at the displays at maximum brightness you can see that the Super AMOLED display is a little more saturated it's a little more colorful low more vivid but the whites aren't as clear so you can see the whites are a little more blueish not as crisp and defined as they are on the LCD display here but the LCD display here is just slightly bigger but it's a little lower resolution but you can see it's a bit brighter now when it comes to off access viewing this is where Super AMOLED has an advantage here so you can see the LCD display does kind of darken when looking off axis I think that's a little more important on the watch when you're looking at on your wrist versus a phone when you're mostly looking at it head-on but you have one more variable angles with a watch than you do on the phone so I think off X's Funes a little important here so you can see that the Super AMOLED display is a bit better for that purpose if you look at these watches sidon you can see that the gear live is a little more form-fitting but it's also a little bulkier here so you can see the hinge of the strap is farther down around your wrist so it feels a little tighter a little less loose than something like the G watch which feels a little more free so this feels a little more comfortable then the gear live but I think the gear life definitely looks a bit more premium now the G watch straps are much softer more pliable than the more rigid design on the gear live which again contributes the more comfortable nature of the G watch so you can also see on the interior we have this kind of diamond-cut design now the gear wipe does look a little more premium than the materials on the G watch but it is more rigid you can see we also have that rib pattern on the inside alright so let's take a look at the user interface now in trying to wear is pretty much the same on all devices it's not allowed to be skin like Android normally is so the experience on the LG G watch the Samsung gear live and the MO backlit LCD panel of eg watch because it's only illuminating the pixels that need to be shown now if you want to wake this up from ambient mode right now you can't see okay Google to begin interacting with it basically have to wake it up there's a number of ways to do that you can twist your wrist to wake it up uses the accelerometer and there we go now we can say okay Google what's the weather like today there we go gives us the weather forecast for today and I'll swipe right to see your weekly forecast you can also tap the button on the side at least in the case of the gear live and wake it up again like so we also just tap the screen to wake it up we can also swipe through the cards here so as you can see here we have several cards here which are basically our notifications we have our email so you can see I have several email messages here so if I go to more you can see all of our emails and basically cycle through them you can tap on them to see the text of the email you can also swipe right to archive which is basically delete in my case or reply to the message if you click reply you can start speaking your text now I also have things like our calendar events we have our pedometer which we can swipe through to see our history our heart rate monitor and go to our settings if we go to our settings takes us to our Settings panel for that app you can swipe to dismiss it now with these notification curves you can also just swipe to the right to close them now we also have text messaging here so for example we can swipe right to begin testing this so for example I can reply this is a test of voice recognition on the gear live period well close enough we're going to allow that to send and we're good so as you can see we got will check here if we swipe here you'll see that message has been added and they're probably wondering what the heck is gear life there you go now alternately with some apps all you have the option is to open on your phone so you get a notification that you've received for example a new question I asked Tata fm so if I go to my phone now if I click open on phone and I unlock my phone should take me right to the app and as it did right there now when you get a notification you get a little pop-up which you can interact with and also vibrates for you just to let you know there is no speaker here so you only hear the tone from your phone not from the watch now from the watch face you can interact with Google now by saying OK Google Navigation to the nearest gas station it's like navigation on my phone and give me directions right on my watch now if you tap on the screen you can get to Google now if you tap again this will take you to what options you have when using Google now so for example you can set reminders show your foot steps with your pedometer your heartrate you can send a text message to anybody you choose will actually allow you to select the number from your contacts you can send an email you can see your agenda for the day navigate set a timer start a stopwatch set an alarm show alarms and you can also go to your settings from here so settings is buried here this is kind of a little confusing so if you want for example change the brightness of your display this is where you go so you can adjust your brightness here I already set it to maximum but by default I think goes down to two here but they are you can swipe to get back to other options here you can always select always-on or we can select always off you also have airplane mode which you can toggle on and off as well from here you can power this off you can restart it you can reset the device change a watch face or go to about this device so for example if you only change the watch face this allows us to select different watch faces and there's many of them to pick from you can see one from familiar from the gear to some others that are custom for the gear live here so there's a lot to pick from this is where they actually differ the LGG watch has a different watch face library than the gear live now the watch face changes when you're in ambient mode so as you can see here it's a slightly different design and when you wake it up goes back to the one you selected if you swipe down here you can see we have the option to mute our notifications or unmute our notifications you can also see our charge status as well as the date now if you want to activate the ambient mode just put your hand over the device in the Ghost asleep now your watch can also act as a remote control for your media playing on your phone so for example I have Google Play music playing right now if I swipe up here I get to my controls complete with album art so I can pause it and play it there's not a lot of controls here I have next I have previous and that sort of thing that's all available in this app now certain amps are treated differently so for example some amps don't have back or forward or fast forward or reverse but most apps have pause or play now you can place and receive phone calls with the gear life so if you're receiving an incoming call you get load notification on the gear live display or the Android wear display you can swipe to answer it and basically you want to pick up your phone answer it or you can swipe to hang up and that will hang up the phone call on the device itself now we can also directly access some of our apps here so if we swipe all the way down here to where we would normally go to settings you see we have a start button so this takes us to for example the compass app the fit app the heart rate monitor and some apps I've installed the hue control and the key these apps are available from the Google Play Store and I'll show you that when we get to the app so there we go we have our compass you can swipe to close that you have to tap this again to get back to that screen here so let's go to start we have the fit app which is a google app here so it shows us our pedometer as well as our heart rate now I've installed some third-party apps including hue control which allows me to control my hue lighting system in my house so right now sees my lighting groups so I have all lights here I can select this this allows me to turn it on or turn it off I can also swipe to change the brightness of my lights I can change the color of those whites or change the saturation all from my wrist now when I'm using my hue lights I actually get a notification card with my hue light control so I don't have to dig around to get to the hue controls right there as one of the notification cards as you can see when I swipe through here so I can swipe right to turn all my lights off or on I can also use voice control so I can say turn lights on now if I swipe all the way over to the right if I click open this actually opens the app that's on the watch here so again I can select my lighting group I can turn them off I can select my color presets which I don't have any real change my brightness the color as well as the saturation now let's take a look at the Android wear app so this is where you can adjust the settings and modify some of the features on your watch right from this app instead of using the watch itself so for example you can change your voice action settings here so these are the default apps for certain apps and if you want to modify them so for example if we go to stopwatch here you have two options here you can select one or the other and as you install other apps are supported here you'll get more options you can also browse compatible app so you can add additional apps from the google app store here so you can see all the apps are available here including IFTTT and then I also installed some other apps the hue app and that sort of thing Google Maps and some of these other apps are already installed can also go up here to disconnect your watch or reconnect your watch I also have additional settings up here so you can mute certain app notifications so if you don't want receive notifications on your watch from certain apps you can add some of those apps so for example if you don't receive notifications from ask.fm on your watch you can edit or remove it you can also select screen always on or off you can hide cards on dim screen so those are the notification cards would appear on your screen when it's in ambient mode so you can hide them or show them always I have it shown always I prefer that we can also silence connected phones so when you receive a notification right now by default both the watch vibrates and your phone rings or vibrates and you can select alert on watch only if you want to mute your phone we can also like to show calendar event cards on our watch or we can resync our apps from our phone so in conclusion Android wear certainly has room to grow and I think the user interface is a little confusing especially for people who are first starting to use it so for example getting to the settings control panel for adjusting fundamental things like brightness isn't the most intuitive thing to do I think things like that will be improved over time but I really like the fact that Android wear works across several devices isn't locked down to Samsung or LG it works on any device that supports the Android wear app now I really like notifications on my watch I do wish it did include a speaker like the gear - but notifications of any kind on your wrist is very handy this means I'm more likely to receive notifications and less likely to miss them especially if your phone is muted now using voice to send text messages is hit or miss at least in my case I find that not to be reliable enough to depend on but in the pinch it definitely can get you by especially if your messages are pretty simple now in terms of which watch I prefer it's actually kind of difficult for me to choose but I definitely prefer the look of the gear live with that metal face plate and that curved glass display with that Super AMOLED screen which is higher resolution just looks a little more premium but it's also kind of a bulky watch has a much wider watch face and the band is a little more rigid so it's not as comfortable especially you have kind of small wrist I think the LG G watch is going to be a little more comfortable with that softer band and that smaller watch face so in terms of comfort LG G watch in terms of style I'm gonna have to favor of the gear now the LG G watch have that magnetic dock which is a nice solution but it's also a heavier charging solution than the Lites class that comes with the gear so I'm not sure which I prefer I don't think it's a big deciding factor for me other than the fact that the magnetic dock just looks a lot neater and of course the gear life has a heart rate monitor so if you want to use this as a fitness device really the gear live is the only one to look at alright guys so that's gonna do for me in this video please let me know which wash you prefer the LGG watch or the gear let me know in the comment section below and I'll see you again in the next video now I also have our hangout messages here so for example if you want to reply to our hangouts message you just swipe right takes us right to be okaywhat's up guys Mike here the Detroit Board with a look at the Samsung gear live and the LG G watch both of these are running Android wear which basically means they're running essentially the same operating system but the hardware is a bit different so we're going to take a look at all three of them in this video nice III then because the LG G watch is available in these two colors and I thought it'd be kind of nice to take a look at them now the LG G watch retails for 229 the gear line retails for 199 you can buy this from the Google Play Store in terms of specs both watches are running the Snapdragon 400 processor clocked at 1.2 gigahertz with half a gig of ram and four gigs of internal storage and that's really where the similarities end now the Samsung is a 1.6 3 Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 320 by 320 that's the same as the gear 2 the LG is using a slightly larger display one point six five inches instead of one point six three inches this is an LCD IPS display with a resolution of 280 by 280 so slightly lower resolution but slightly larger display now the Samsung has a 300 million power battery versus the 400 million power bury in the LG G watch it also makes the LG G watch slightly heavier than the Samsung and slightly thicker but the Samsung watch is actually expected to get better battery life thanks to the Super AMOLED display alright so for our first unboxing let's go and take a look at the Samsung gear live and if you're familiar with the gear 2 unboxing and review I did earlier this is pretty familiar packaging alright so I'm just going to cut this seal right here alright so let's go ahead and lift the lid there we go there's the gear live and it's a little tray pull it out of here as you can see it's wrapped in plastic just like the gear 2 I reviewed earlier so let me go ahead and peel this off it'll tab here I have another piece of plastic covering the clasp so inside our packaging we have our wall charger you can see this is a fixed wall adapter with a micro USB charging port at the other end and then we have our charging cradle right here wrapped in plastic again very familiar to the gear 2 products so as you can see here this snaps onto the back and you have your little charging port on the side in fact let's go ahead and show you this on the back of the gear live you can see we have a heart rate monitor and our electrical connections for the dock just snap this on and plug it in and charge it now if you look at the krail you can see it actually leaves a little hole here for the microphone to work through the cradle when it's connected then you can see we have our kind of home-button along the sides of the gear and when you want to pop this off you just push here pops right off also tucked in here is some paperwork so we have health and safety and warranty guide for the Samsung gear as well as a quick reference manual and explore all of this and we set it up now before we take a look at the gear let's go ahead and get to the LGG watch so we can compare them we have the white and gold and the black version I think the black version is going to be the most popular and I don't think a lot of people are taking a look at the white version so I thought it'd be kind of nice to take a look at that so let's go ahead and crack these open at the same time I'm going to crack the seals right here all right so let's go ahead and lift the lids here so we have our black model and then we have our white model there we go all right so let's go ahead and pull out the black model here so you can see we have black faceplate black trim pieces and a black band we're gonna set that aside for just a moment and get to the white one here so as you can see here a white band with gold trim and a white back panel now we should have all these same accessories on the inside we have a wall adapter so there we go we have an LG branded Universal USB wall adapter unlike the fixed kill on the Samsung lunch and we have our magnetic charging dock which is a little different than the friction dock on the gear product so on the front we have a magnetic charging tray with the charging connections right there we have our USB charging port on the side and then we have this foot this allows us to stick the charger to a table so it won't move around when you're charging your watch I have to do is peel off the plastic that's back here like so and there we go and that's reusable so you can clean this up and stick it anywhere you want now I also get a Quick Start Guide in multiple languages and we're going to cover that in this video the white watch has the exact same accessories they are not color matched to the white they're still black alright so let's get to the launches all right so the LG G watch has a little more plastic than the gear so it's going to peel that off I think we also have some pieces along the side as well as some plastic on the back course same story with the black washes peel off the front panel and the back panel as well as the plastic along the side now turning on the gear life is pretty straightforward you have a power button along the side just tap that and it should begin the Buddha process I have it upside down here so you get that little animation like Android wear animation that's the same on the LGG watch and then we can go through the Sailor process now the LGG watch there is no power button but you can turn it on simply by document in the cradle and connecting the power and begins charging and wakes it up but if you want to power on the old-fashioned way there's actually a tiny little button right there that allows you to turn on if you have a paper clip or something like that or a sim ejection tool now if I press and hold that button it should start booting up here there we go let's go through the setup process here and select my language announce telling me to install Android wear on your phone so I'm going to take my LG g3 and now it doesn't have to be an LG phone just because it's an LG watch this will work with any Android phone that supports the Android wear app so let me go to the App Store here so I'm just going to search for Android wear I see the app right here it is a free app it's going to install it alright so let's get still up here and it's going to tell us a little bit about the features that are included with the software I'm going to click accept so right now the app actually sees three Android wear devices including the one I want to pair right here G watch 1ee C so let's go and select that alright so we just have to match the codes and we're going to click pair here and I also have to make sure that your phone's bluetooth is turned on so that's the first step now the first step here is to download the latest firmware first thing the app wants me to do is to enable notifications for Android wear so let's go to a notification settings and select Android wear click OK and we're good to go alright first up let's take a look at the Samsung gear live so this is running Android wear so as you can see here it's got that card viewer I'll take a close look at the operating system a bit later but as you can see here we have a 1.6 3 inch Super AMOLED display 320 by 320 resolution looks great off access with very bright vivid colors as you can see here with this nice curved metal faceplate which adds some sophistication to the design so it looks kind of like a traditional watch in many ways very similar to the gear 2 along the side you have something unique to the gear life which is a home button which allows you to either shut it off or take it to the home screen you have a microphone right here there is no speaker on this you get with the gear too if you open up the clasp here we have the Samsung clasp this is actually clasp very similar to the gear fit but different than the gear 2 so you can see here we have our heartrate monitor and the charging connections on the back for the snap-on cradle you can see on the side we also have these little fittings just above the microphone on the left hand and right hand side for snapping on that cradle now as you can see here these straps are removable so you can add your own straps if you prefer although as you can see here the design it's kind of integrated on the gear now if you look side on you can see that the glass panel is actually slightly curved at the ends here so it provides a little more of a jewelry like effect now just to quickly show you the difference between the gear 2 and the gear line both have the same display 320 by 320 super amoled and the design is very similar although a little different here you can see that the gear live is a little wider so it's got a taller design but still has its kind of same curved glass design you can see that we have a home button on the gear 2 and this is running Tizen versus Android wear Android wear is basically a universal operating system while Tizen is a Samsung exclusive so this only works with Samsung phones while the gear live will actually work with any phone running the gear live manager and the or the Android wear manager and is running Android 4.3 or newer you can see we also have a camera on the gear 2 with an IR blaster none on the gear life we also have a speaker on the gear 2 versus the gear live which has no speaker just has a microphone but we do retain the heart rate monitor on the back so we do have that feature which the LG G watch does not have the clasps are also different here this is more like the gear fit kind of a lower end class versus the one that's on the gear 2 here but of course the gear 2 is also $100 more expensive so this retails for $2.99 versus $1.99 for the Samsung gear live all right so we take a close look at the LG G watch on the back we have this plastic back panel which is color matched to the band so whites with the white and black with the black if you look along the sides you can see we have a metal band it's gold or champagne colored zombie white black on the black I think it looks a little more premium on the white malla just because it highlights the fact that this is a metal material while this just kind of looks like black plastic you can also see we have a glossy plastic bezel that goes around the glass display you can also see that metal band fastens the watch band now if you look along the top you'll see that little pinhole microphone for interacting with Google now with voice recognition we also have our color matching watch class you can see gold and black this is a pretty traditional watch class we're all familiar with it's a little different than what Samsung is elected to go with which is similar to the fit so basically you just line up these pinholes snap into place and resize it as needed I don't really like this as much as the traditional class just because it's kind of harder to get the right fit with this now if you look at the displays at maximum brightness you can see that the Super AMOLED display is a little more saturated it's a little more colorful low more vivid but the whites aren't as clear so you can see the whites are a little more blueish not as crisp and defined as they are on the LCD display here but the LCD display here is just slightly bigger but it's a little lower resolution but you can see it's a bit brighter now when it comes to off access viewing this is where Super AMOLED has an advantage here so you can see the LCD display does kind of darken when looking off axis I think that's a little more important on the watch when you're looking at on your wrist versus a phone when you're mostly looking at it head-on but you have one more variable angles with a watch than you do on the phone so I think off X's Funes a little important here so you can see that the Super AMOLED display is a bit better for that purpose if you look at these watches sidon you can see that the gear live is a little more form-fitting but it's also a little bulkier here so you can see the hinge of the strap is farther down around your wrist so it feels a little tighter a little less loose than something like the G watch which feels a little more free so this feels a little more comfortable then the gear live but I think the gear life definitely looks a bit more premium now the G watch straps are much softer more pliable than the more rigid design on the gear live which again contributes the more comfortable nature of the G watch so you can also see on the interior we have this kind of diamond-cut design now the gear wipe does look a little more premium than the materials on the G watch but it is more rigid you can see we also have that rib pattern on the inside alright so let's take a look at the user interface now in trying to wear is pretty much the same on all devices it's not allowed to be skin like Android normally is so the experience on the LG G watch the Samsung gear live and the MO backlit LCD panel of eg watch because it's only illuminating the pixels that need to be shown now if you want to wake this up from ambient mode right now you can't see okay Google to begin interacting with it basically have to wake it up there's a number of ways to do that you can twist your wrist to wake it up uses the accelerometer and there we go now we can say okay Google what's the weather like today there we go gives us the weather forecast for today and I'll swipe right to see your weekly forecast you can also tap the button on the side at least in the case of the gear live and wake it up again like so we also just tap the screen to wake it up we can also swipe through the cards here so as you can see here we have several cards here which are basically our notifications we have our email so you can see I have several email messages here so if I go to more you can see all of our emails and basically cycle through them you can tap on them to see the text of the email you can also swipe right to archive which is basically delete in my case or reply to the message if you click reply you can start speaking your text now I also have things like our calendar events we have our pedometer which we can swipe through to see our history our heart rate monitor and go to our settings if we go to our settings takes us to our Settings panel for that app you can swipe to dismiss it now with these notification curves you can also just swipe to the right to close them now we also have text messaging here so for example we can swipe right to begin testing this so for example I can reply this is a test of voice recognition on the gear live period well close enough we're going to allow that to send and we're good so as you can see we got will check here if we swipe here you'll see that message has been added and they're probably wondering what the heck is gear life there you go now alternately with some apps all you have the option is to open on your phone so you get a notification that you've received for example a new question I asked Tata fm so if I go to my phone now if I click open on phone and I unlock my phone should take me right to the app and as it did right there now when you get a notification you get a little pop-up which you can interact with and also vibrates for you just to let you know there is no speaker here so you only hear the tone from your phone not from the watch now from the watch face you can interact with Google now by saying OK Google Navigation to the nearest gas station it's like navigation on my phone and give me directions right on my watch now if you tap on the screen you can get to Google now if you tap again this will take you to what options you have when using Google now so for example you can set reminders show your foot steps with your pedometer your heartrate you can send a text message to anybody you choose will actually allow you to select the number from your contacts you can send an email you can see your agenda for the day navigate set a timer start a stopwatch set an alarm show alarms and you can also go to your settings from here so settings is buried here this is kind of a little confusing so if you want for example change the brightness of your display this is where you go so you can adjust your brightness here I already set it to maximum but by default I think goes down to two here but they are you can swipe to get back to other options here you can always select always-on or we can select always off you also have airplane mode which you can toggle on and off as well from here you can power this off you can restart it you can reset the device change a watch face or go to about this device so for example if you only change the watch face this allows us to select different watch faces and there's many of them to pick from you can see one from familiar from the gear to some others that are custom for the gear live here so there's a lot to pick from this is where they actually differ the LGG watch has a different watch face library than the gear live now the watch face changes when you're in ambient mode so as you can see here it's a slightly different design and when you wake it up goes back to the one you selected if you swipe down here you can see we have the option to mute our notifications or unmute our notifications you can also see our charge status as well as the date now if you want to activate the ambient mode just put your hand over the device in the Ghost asleep now your watch can also act as a remote control for your media playing on your phone so for example I have Google Play music playing right now if I swipe up here I get to my controls complete with album art so I can pause it and play it there's not a lot of controls here I have next I have previous and that sort of thing that's all available in this app now certain amps are treated differently so for example some amps don't have back or forward or fast forward or reverse but most apps have pause or play now you can place and receive phone calls with the gear life so if you're receiving an incoming call you get load notification on the gear live display or the Android wear display you can swipe to answer it and basically you want to pick up your phone answer it or you can swipe to hang up and that will hang up the phone call on the device itself now we can also directly access some of our apps here so if we swipe all the way down here to where we would normally go to settings you see we have a start button so this takes us to for example the compass app the fit app the heart rate monitor and some apps I've installed the hue control and the key these apps are available from the Google Play Store and I'll show you that when we get to the app so there we go we have our compass you can swipe to close that you have to tap this again to get back to that screen here so let's go to start we have the fit app which is a google app here so it shows us our pedometer as well as our heart rate now I've installed some third-party apps including hue control which allows me to control my hue lighting system in my house so right now sees my lighting groups so I have all lights here I can select this this allows me to turn it on or turn it off I can also swipe to change the brightness of my lights I can change the color of those whites or change the saturation all from my wrist now when I'm using my hue lights I actually get a notification card with my hue light control so I don't have to dig around to get to the hue controls right there as one of the notification cards as you can see when I swipe through here so I can swipe right to turn all my lights off or on I can also use voice control so I can say turn lights on now if I swipe all the way over to the right if I click open this actually opens the app that's on the watch here so again I can select my lighting group I can turn them off I can select my color presets which I don't have any real change my brightness the color as well as the saturation now let's take a look at the Android wear app so this is where you can adjust the settings and modify some of the features on your watch right from this app instead of using the watch itself so for example you can change your voice action settings here so these are the default apps for certain apps and if you want to modify them so for example if we go to stopwatch here you have two options here you can select one or the other and as you install other apps are supported here you'll get more options you can also browse compatible app so you can add additional apps from the google app store here so you can see all the apps are available here including IFTTT and then I also installed some other apps the hue app and that sort of thing Google Maps and some of these other apps are already installed can also go up here to disconnect your watch or reconnect your watch I also have additional settings up here so you can mute certain app notifications so if you don't want receive notifications on your watch from certain apps you can add some of those apps so for example if you don't receive notifications from ask.fm on your watch you can edit or remove it you can also select screen always on or off you can hide cards on dim screen so those are the notification cards would appear on your screen when it's in ambient mode so you can hide them or show them always I have it shown always I prefer that we can also silence connected phones so when you receive a notification right now by default both the watch vibrates and your phone rings or vibrates and you can select alert on watch only if you want to mute your phone we can also like to show calendar event cards on our watch or we can resync our apps from our phone so in conclusion Android wear certainly has room to grow and I think the user interface is a little confusing especially for people who are first starting to use it so for example getting to the settings control panel for adjusting fundamental things like brightness isn't the most intuitive thing to do I think things like that will be improved over time but I really like the fact that Android wear works across several devices isn't locked down to Samsung or LG it works on any device that supports the Android wear app now I really like notifications on my watch I do wish it did include a speaker like the gear - but notifications of any kind on your wrist is very handy this means I'm more likely to receive notifications and less likely to miss them especially if your phone is muted now using voice to send text messages is hit or miss at least in my case I find that not to be reliable enough to depend on but in the pinch it definitely can get you by especially if your messages are pretty simple now in terms of which watch I prefer it's actually kind of difficult for me to choose but I definitely prefer the look of the gear live with that metal face plate and that curved glass display with that Super AMOLED screen which is higher resolution just looks a little more premium but it's also kind of a bulky watch has a much wider watch face and the band is a little more rigid so it's not as comfortable especially you have kind of small wrist I think the LG G watch is going to be a little more comfortable with that softer band and that smaller watch face so in terms of comfort LG G watch in terms of style I'm gonna have to favor of the gear now the LG G watch have that magnetic dock which is a nice solution but it's also a heavier charging solution than the Lites class that comes with the gear so I'm not sure which I prefer I don't think it's a big deciding factor for me other than the fact that the magnetic dock just looks a lot neater and of course the gear life has a heart rate monitor so if you want to use this as a fitness device really the gear live is the only one to look at alright guys so that's gonna do for me in this video please let me know which wash you prefer the LGG watch or the gear let me know in the comment section below and I'll see you again in the next video now I also have our hangout messages here so for example if you want to reply to our hangouts message you just swipe right takes us right to be okay\n"