Google Watch (Officially Android Wear) Announced

The big news in the wearable world this week was the announcement of the Google Watch that’s being called Android Wear. There are a lot of nuances to their product like any announcement. For example, Google is doing like Android and working with a lot of other hardware manufacturers. Like most smart watches, the connection to your cell phone is key. Check out this video to see a preview of Android Wear:

One of the key differentiators I’ve seen between this and other smart watches is the integration with Google Now. If you have an Android phone, you’re likely familiar with Google Now. It provides a smart set of notifications that only Android can provide since it knows a lot about you through all the various Google Apps like Google Calendar.

The announcement offers one healthcare angle:

The ability to better monitor your health and fitness. Hit your exercise goals with reminders and fitness summaries from Android Wear. Your favorite fitness apps can give you real-time speed, distance and time information on your wrist for your run, cycle or walk.

You’ll see that they don’t mention any built in fitness options. Instead, they’re just tapping into your existing wearables. We’ll see if that’s a smart strategy or not.

What do you think of the Android Wear?

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

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