With the increasing trend of smartwatches, Motorola has lately jumped into the bandwagon of making such wearable devices. Well, over the week, Motorola has launched the Moto 360 smartwatch that is based on Google’s Android Wear that stretches the Android platform to the wearables. Motorola on Wednesday hosted a live Hangout on its YouTube Channel, where Jim Wicks, Lead Designer of the Moto 360, disclosed few features of the watch.
Crafted using stainless steel, the Motorola’s smartwatch is mainly designed to make your wrist attractive and to help you stay updated and communicate with others effectively without pulling out your smartphone. The Moto 360 features a round display and there is an option to swap the straps between steel and genuine leather as well.
Further, the Moto 360 is not compatible with microUSB port thereby making it clear that users can charge the smartwatch wirelessly. Interestingly, the smartwatch is waterproof, but its submergence levels have not been disclosed yet.
Moto 360 runs on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean and versions above that and it will be compatible with the Motorola devices and other Android devices as well running Android 4.3 and above. The device lacks a camera, but it comes with the “Ok Google” feature that allows users to perform several activities such as play a song, get directions, send a text or do a voice search with their voice commands.
With this Motorola smartwatch, users can get subtle alerts and notifications as and when required. It is still not clear if the vendor has included a direct voice calling functionality to this device. The Moto 360 will be available in a range of styles across the globe starting from Summer 2014 and the initial release will be aimed in US, however the pricing of the smartwatch is still not revealed.
Google has mentioned that the company is in talks with hardware manufacturers such as LG, Samsung and HTC to launch smartwatches that will be powered by the Android Wear platform. Also, they are planning to rope in chip makers such as MediaTek, Qualcomm, Broadcom and Intel to ink a deal for making more smartwatches.
Post by Abhinaya Prabhu
To be updated...