Android Wear is what many wearable devices run on. You might have a smartwatch yourself. Will wearables be the next hype after phones, phablets, and tablets? Or will smartwatches become part of something bigger, such as the Internet of Things (IoT)?

Android Wear is a special version of the Android SDK and is dedicated to wearables that are often more limited in hardware and available sensors and have smaller screens. Wearables may appear as watches, glasses, or maybe in future as contact lenses, tattoos, or clothing.

Currently, we see wearables appearing mostly as watches but there are plenty of other wearable devices that you can think of. However, it will take some time for people to adopt this new technology. Think of the Google Glass project for example. It is a brilliant solution but mostly because of the built-in camera, people are having serious objections to it. In San Francisco, they have even made up a word for it: glass hole. Hmm. That is not really flattering is it? Let's have a look at the following device:

Devices do not necessarily have to be wearable. When the IOT is discussed, project Brillo comes to mind. It extends the Android platform to any connected device that you can think of. In future, Brillo and Android Wear might even be merged.

Imagine a hot summer day; the fridge notifies us about the fact that we are running out of sparkling water (or was it beer?). Cool! The learning thermostat sets the temperature to 18°C an hour before you come home. Even cooler! The light in the living room dims automatically because it is late in the evening; you are playing some romantic music and the system knows you have just opened a bottle of wine-Ehrm. Weird. That is a completely different story and so is Brillo for now.

Instead, let's find out which apps we can build for a smart watch such as a brand new watch face or a health app displaying notifications from time to time. In the upcoming recipes, we will see what we need to do for that.

First things first, let's see if we can get things up and running on a wearable device. For the first two recipes, you do not need to have a real smartwatch. We will create a virtual one in the first recipe.