Android Wear expands gestures and voice commands, adds speaker support

Until now, Android Wear users could simply flick their wrists to scroll up and down in the smartwatch’s card stream.

Android Marshmallow is about to hit Android Wear watches everywhere within a few weeks’ time. However, there is a new breed of Android Wear-based watches (the Huawei Watch and the ASUS ZenWatch 2), which feature built-in speakers and with this update will be able to make calls outright in this fashion when paired with a smartphone.

The Android Wear update enables speaker support which opens up a whole slew of functions on some devices. I could hear the other caller via the watch’s speakers despite the noisy convention center around me, though the sound was a little distorted.

The boost means owners of devices like the Huawei Watch or ASUS ZenWatch 2 will be able to make and take calls from the watch, bypassing the Bluetooth connected phone completely. For instance, if the user says, “Okay Google, send a Viber message to Britney: How are you?” then it’ll automatically send the message to the designated recipient. Commands such as “Okay Google, send a WhatsApp message to Johnny: How are you?” are expected to now be supported.

Let us know if you see the update to your Android Wear watch – we’ll be watching! Shaking your wrist a couple of times will exit any app and take you back to the home screen.

Starting things off is a set of new navigation options for wrist gestures.

It might take a few weeks to reach all watches, but Google has officially announced that it will roll out the update to all of them.

What do you think of the new functionality?

As regards to who will get it first, Google didn’t emphasize it. However, some people assumed that it will be Moto 360 2nd Gen. The reason for this is that it’s one of the most popular Android smartwatches.

Another new feature in the smartwatch platform is the ability to use a speaker when making a call or listening to your messages. As Android Wear gets more powerful, those skeptical of putting a computer on their wrist might be willing to give the idea a second though. In addition to the speaker, the Android Wear update also adds new gestures. As Google notes, you will also be able to listen to audio and video messages from a number of applications that already support this feature, including Glide (remember Glide?).