Watch Control: Build a bridge between you and Android Wear

A week ago, after watching the Apple Watch launch and the article on Maowo, I suddenly wanted to buy an Android Wear watch. Coincidentally, a company sent me a Moto 360 before I placed an order, hoping to review their software - Watch Control.

As far as I know, another voice assistant software company, Mobvoi, is working on a Chinese ROM for Android Wear watches. The ROM is in the early testing stage. Just like many people bought parallel imports of Kindle before the Chinese version was released and then flashed it to the Duokan system, if Mobvoi's Ticwear ROM is ready, it will definitely boost the sales of Android Wear watches.

However, flashing the watch is quite a hassle, maybe because I am no longer at the age of tinkering and have become lazy. I am quite interested in the solution of adding plug-ins without flashing the watch. Through it, I activated Moto 360 on Xiaomi 2S, Samsung Galaxy S3 and Nexus 4, and used the legendary Android Wear watch. Only then did I realize that I had made a mistake of taking it for granted before, thinking that Android Wear must be "scientifically connected to the Internet" all the time. In fact, even if it is only used to receive notifications from WeChat and other software on the mobile phone, Android Wear is attractive enough.

How to use

Watch Control is an Android app that can help users who have purchased Android Wear watches activate their devices and connect them to a regular Android phone for use. I first activated Moto 360 on Nexus 4 using the official Android Wear app. Because this phone is connected to VPN, Watch Control software is completely unnecessary. Next, turn off VPN and try to activate Moto 360 through Watch Control. At this time, Watch Control will create a VPN and provide a simple "tutorial" to help Moto 360 connect to Google's server for activation through the Anddroid Wear app. After activation, VPN will automatically turn off, and Moto 360 will be able to work, or to be more precise, it will be able to do the most useful work - managing notifications on Android phones. This process takes no more than 5 minutes, and the Google account login step can also be skipped.

Nexus 4 implies a condition that most domestic Android phones do not have, that is, a full set of Google's underlying software. So, I installed Watch Control on a Xiaomi 2S phone with MIUI 6 system. At this time, it detected that the phone lacked the Google five-piece set (see the picture above), and then provided a one-click "download and install" function, without the user having to look around. After the installation is complete, enter the second step of activation, install the Android Wear application, and there is no need to look around, Watch Control provides a ready-made download link. In the last step, Watch Control created Wei Pian and provided a tutorial to help users use Android Wear to activate Moto 360. In this way, this Xiaomi 2S can also use Moto 360 smoothly.

In order to test which models the watch control can be used on, I also tried a Galaxy S3 with CM system (they are all old phones), the process was the same as the Xiaomi 2S, and it was successful. The other one was a Moto X sold in China. When installing the Google underlying software, one of the "Google Account Management" failed to install, showing "the shared library required by the installation package does not exist", and failed. My classmates who love watch control told me that Xiaomi, ZTE, Huawei, HTC, Meizu and other brands of mobile phones can support it, and the Samsung mobile phones sold in China also lack shared libraries, so they need root to support it.

In other words, if we have mobile phones of these brands, we can activate Android Wear watches through Watch Control without asking for help or flashing the phone. Even if we accidentally uninstall Watch Control after activating the watch, it will not affect the most important function - receiving notifications. But Watch Control not only helps users activate devices, it also provides Chinese voice assistant and notification optimization functions for domestic users.

How to use it

Android Wear watches mainly do two things: one is to provide Google Now voice assistant, and the other is to display notifications when the phone is locked. The former requires a mobile phone, but the latter does not.

Google Now is very powerful when used with services such as Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Maps. However, most people in China cannot use it, and those who can use it have their own ways. Watch Control's Android Wear client provides a replacement, a voice assistant suitable for China (see the picture above), which can be called up by swiping left from the right edge of the watch's main interface. During the test, the voice assistant did not work. Watch Control's classmates said that it is under development and will provide an activation password similar to "OK Google" in the future.

Currently, the Android Wear apps that also support voice search include Baidu Watch, Microsoft's Bing Torque and Mobvoi. Baidu and Microsoft use common search engine data, while Mobvoi mainly provides information on life services such as food, drink and entertainment.

Voice is a perfect match for watches, but these voice services are not satisfactory to me. At present, the most attractive feature of Android Wear watches for ordinary users is "notification".

#p#

WeChat has an Android Wear client. When it detects that the phone is connected to an Android Wear device, it will automatically push the client to the watch via Bluetooth and automatically follow the official WeChat Watch account for you. Therefore, we can not only view notifications on the watch, but also reply directly by voice (note that the microphone hole is on the left side of the watch, so you can slightly tilt it to the left to ensure clear voice).

QQ does not have a dedicated client yet, so we can only view the latest notification and cannot reply. Watch Control has optimized QQ notification information and can display the content of multiple messages, not just the latest one. For QQ users, this optimization is very useful.

The notifications on the Moto 360 can be synchronized with the mobile phone notifications. So in many cases, we can check the information without taking out the mobile phone. This is very important, and many users have reported that once they get used to it, it is difficult to leave the watch screen.

How to use it better

In addition to a few voice search apps and the most important notification function, Android Wear can do a lot. Whether to support Android Wear clients is closely related to the vision of a company. There are already hundreds of selected apps in the Android Wear section of the entire Play Store. Here are 3 apps I have used:

Evernote allows you to view the latest 3 notes and cross out to-do items.

Pomodoro can practice the Pomodoro Technique, working for 25 minutes and resting for 5 minutes.

2048, wherever there is a screen, there is a game, no matter how big or small. Double-click to display the score, long-press to exit the game.

Summarize

Many Android Wear watch sellers on Taobao have used watch control as a selling point. After returning this Moto 360, I will consider which Android Wear watch to buy. There are currently 7 models, 3 round ones and 4 square ones. I prefer the square one.

The developer of Watch Control is also the developer of the sports record app Le Power. They once attracted attention because Le Power was selected as the 2013 App Store's annual outstanding application. Now their bet is on watches. Like Mobvoi, Watch Control is also a promoter of Android Wear in China. It has built a bridge to connect Android phone users with the seemingly distant Android Wear.

On April 24, when Apple Watch was officially released, more and more iPhone users checked information directly on their wrists. Perhaps more Android users will realize that they need to be "watch-obsessed" and keep up with the times.