Wearable Tech | Android SmartWatches

Wearable tech: it's a buzzword. It's a trend. It's a swamp. Go to any store or browse any website and you'll find fitness bands, smartwatches, and even the occasional smart glasses to buy. Which should you buy? Should you buy any at all?

Design: Does it actually appeal to you? This is a personal question.

Phone support: You'll need Bluetooth 4.0; also, your phone and OS need to be supported. Is it waterproof, or swim-friendly? Do you shower with your watch on?

Battery life: Our baseline is an average of three days for a smartwatch, seven days average for a fitness band -- but very few current products meet those expectations.

What apps does it run? Pebble, Android Wear, and Samsung Gear all use different apps. Color screen, or black and white, or something else, or none at all? Some screens are always on. Can it recognize your voice, and can it act as a speakerphone? Is there a heart-rate monitor? How does it track fitness? Heart-rate monitors vary greatly, too.

Smartwatches are mostly accessories to your phone. They need the right type of phone to work with: some are Android-only, some iPhone-only. Some work with Android, iOS and even Windows. Some run their own apps. Some are waterproof. Some have color screens. Some can even take phone calls via speakerphone.

Android Wear is the biggest and most ambitious wearable tech platform so far. Android Wear software runs similarly across a variety of watches. All Android Wear watches run the same apps, which load via an Android phone. You need Android OS version 4.3 or later, and a phone that has Bluetooth LE, or Bluetooth 4.0. Android Wear watches won't work with iPhones or Windows phones. Android Wear watches either have round or square displays and a variety of designs: leather bands, metal bands, futuristic minimalist designs, are made of metal or plastic, and even a few that look like regular watches. They all have microphones but can use them only to recognize your voice to search Google, transcribe messages or initiate voice commands. Android Wear watches don't have speakers and can't act as speakerphones. None of them have cameras. They all currently have 4GB of onboard storage, which you can't manage: it's used to download apps or store music for playback on Bluetooth-connected headphones.

All Android Wear watches have color displays, too, which means you'll need to lift or tap them to tell the time, or set them to "ambient" mode for an always-on dimmed display that drains battery life. Speaking of battery life, expect about two days on a single charge -- give or take a day based on your settings.

There are a lot of apps available, which install automatically to your watch when the Android app is downloaded to your phone. This "cross-load" strategy means more seamless app-to-phone handoffs, but quite a few things you do on Android Wear require you to open your phone to see the rest -- like Web pages found by Google search, for instance.