We live in a time and age where interesting and revolutionary technological advancements are happening all around us. One such advancement has caused fashion and technology to cross, giving us the smartwatch, a wearable device. With this kind of technology a challenging situation has emerged. Creation of apps for these devices. How does one create apps that work with these devices? In this blog, we will be discussing what exactly wearable devices are and the creation of apps for these devices.
What are wearable devices?
As the name suggests, wearable devices are devices that have incorporated technology in items that can be comfortably worn. These devices are capable of recording data on a real time basis. Wearable technology uses the internet to connect to another device. Currently, most of these devices are made to work with smartphones. Technology in wearable devices is still at its infancy, there is a long way to go.
Wearable devices take information from the user through various technologies unique to these devices like motion sensors and activity trackers and send it to the user\’s smartphone. Think of it like a smartphone, capable of doing a few extra cool things and you can wear it.
App development for Wearable devices
As said earlier, these devices connect to a smartphone, app developers have a new challenge, building ‘wearable apps’ that work with this kind of technology and utilize its key features effectively. These apps are very difficult and complicated and since it’s a very recent development in technology, Developers are still trying to figure out how to make certain apps work with these devices.
Right now, Apple and Google are the biggest creators of these wearable apps, which is kind of obvious as most of the popular wearable devices that connect to a smartphone are either iOS or Android.
Where are wearable Apps used
Wearable devices especially smartwatches are capable of doing most things that a smartphone can do to a certain degree, but it just needs to be connected to a smartphone. Most popular apps have a version of their app that works with smartwatches ( for example: Spotify can be used even with a smartwatch) but what make wearable devices unique is its ability to track bodily functions like heart beat, Pulse rate, calorie count, hours of sleep etc, which has been heavily utilized by health and fitness apps. Wearable apps have also diversified into various other sections like Fashion, gaming, Entertainment, Education, Business etc. From creating a more realistic feel in gaming, helping manage daily tasks, even listening to music without having to carry a phone around all the time, wearable technology is evolving over time and app developers are trying to make apps that make use of this technology effectively.
Things that App developers need to look into while creating wearable Apps
1) Of course, these devices are vastly different from a smartphone, so not only does the attractiveness of the app matter, the app needs to be easy enough to use.
2) Apps that consume too much battery are generally not preferable by people. So in a wearable device one must be careful selecting the functions that are available on the wearable app.
3) Since Wearable devices use internet to transfer data to the smartphone, there needs to be enough security so that data is not stolen by third party
4) Other than just having a version that goes with a wearable device, app need to incorporate features of wearable devices in the app so the user is interested to use it
5) Also, the app needs to evolve with the up gradation of the features of a wearable devices
6) The app needs to be compatible with various platforms
7) It can be hard to find a purpose of creating an app for a wearable device as its functions are limited to an extent. Just remember that to make a wearable app more interesting, try to make an app that makes the user’s life a little easier even without their smartphone.
