What is it like to be a rare Android Wear developer?

While I was on the subway, the Moto 360 on my left wrist vibrated. I looked down and saw that my friend had sent me a WeChat message asking if I wanted to have dinner together that evening. I swiped the watch face and sent a voice message to the watch on the reply interface. We agreed to meet in Sanlitun at 6pm, and my phone was still in my bag.

This is my first time to experience Android Wear, which is simple, practical and cool. However, the previous activation and installation process is exactly the opposite: first, you need to download a series of Google services on your phone: including the Google service framework, Google Play services, Google account management and Google Play application store, which are usually not fully available on domestic Android; secondly, you need to download an Android Wear application; finally, you can use Bluetooth to complete the pairing of the phone and the watch when you are connected to the Internet.

Although Google launched Android Wear as early as March last year, and major manufacturers have also launched corresponding hardware products, due to restrictions on Google services in China, smart watches are still the playthings of niche technology enthusiasts. For this reason, there are still very few Android Wear developers in China. Liu Chao, the founder and CEO of Watch Control (formerly Xiaoma Watch Butler), is one of the first to "take the lead". His goal is to make Android Wear simple and easy to use in China.

Make Android Wear simple and easy to use

Watch Control (Xiao Ma Watch Manager) is a watch assistant app that localizes Android Wear. First, it will guide users to complete the three steps of getting started configuration on their phones: download and install Google services, install Android Wear, and pair and activate the phone and watch. Then, like other Android Wear apps, it will push its own Android Wear App to the watch for installation. After the installation is complete, a small floating arrow will appear on the right side of the watch face. Clicking the arrow will call out a Chinese "desktop", which currently has practical functions such as Chinese voice, weather, pedometer, heart rate, alarm clock, stopwatch, and phone finder.

One of the important functions of Android Wear is to push notifications on mobile phones. Watch Control has optimized the WeChat and QQ push messages on the watch. When receiving multiple push messages, the native Android Wear can only display a prompt such as "3 friends sent 10 messages", which has limited effect on the user's wrist. Watch Control splits all the messages according to the contacts and displays the details in order (as shown in the figure below). While they do this on the watch, they also optimize the push messages on the phone accordingly. In addition, Watch Control can also identify harassing calls, which can help users quickly hang up malicious calls.

Watch Control is still in the beta stage and can only be installed by downloading the apk file from its forum. The product still has many imperfections, such as the visual prompt of the interface is a small arrow, which makes people mistakenly think it is a sliding operation, but it should be a click. In addition, the sensitivity of voice control still needs to be improved. However, for Chinese users who have never used Android Wear, it has greatly lowered the threshold for configuring and using smart watches.

The "curve-saving" way to develop software for wearable devices

When I met with the watch-obsessed team, I found that they all wore a Moto 360. Founder and CEO Liu Chao said that he most often used it to check IM notifications, email titles and schedules, and would change the watch face from time to time.

Liu Chao has a typical engineering background. After graduating from the Department of Computer Science at Peking University in 2008, he worked at Google China and Google headquarters for two years each. He returned to Beijing because of China's unique entrepreneurial environment. After more than two years of entrepreneurship, the team has grown from 3 people to 30 people.

Previously, Liu Chao and his team had become famous for an app called "Ledongli". This sports and health app took only two months from development to launch, and eight months later it was named the App Store's 2013 Outstanding App of the Year by Apple. Ledongli was the first Chinese developer team to receive this honor.

What surprised me was that the development from Lepower to Watch Control was not a gradual one, but a roundabout way to develop software for wearable devices.

"When the team first started raising funds, we said we wanted to develop software for wearable devices. Now you may think I'm bragging, but it's true."

Wrist devices like Fitbit have already appeared abroad, but smart watches have not yet appeared. "That's why we first thought of this wearable device," Liu Chao pointed to the mobile phone on the table: "Everyone will definitely carry this wearable device with them."

Although Ledongli is very successful, it is little known that Liu Chao and his team had previously made two obscure apps: "Molecular Movement" and "Red Envelopes Are Coming", both of which failed. The more than one year from September 2012 to the end of 2013 was the most difficult time for the team.

“Like almost all startups, what everyone sees is the story of a startup team after it succeeds and becomes famous, but in fact, it struggled and suffered for a long time before that.”

Although we have taken some detours, the general direction of the team has always been relatively clear. The "molecular motion" in the early days of the business was based on the relevant algorithms of sensors, which is also the core technology of Ledongli and Watch Control. At present, Ledongli is still a sports and health community with a large number of active users, and it has accumulated a lot of users and content. Liu Chao said that Ledongli's accumulation in technology, products, and community will be carried over to Watch Control.

Four major demands on smart watches

Liu Chao has his own understanding of the killer applications for smart watches.

First of all, he believes that voice is the most basic and direct way of interaction on a watch. Currently, Android Wear does not support Chinese voice operation, so Watch Control cooperated with AISpeech, a leading voice technology company in China, to add the most basic Chinese voice function to the watch.

After solving this basic problem, Liu Chao and his team further thought about what the so-called killer apps on watches are. They concluded that there are four major categories: sports and health, personalization, social networking, and efficiency tools:

The first is the sports and health function. Liu Chao believes that the functions of sports bracelets that users are already familiar with: walking, sleeping, and exercising are also very natural and necessary on watches.

The second is personalization. Whether from the hardware appearance or the dial, a watch is a device that highlights personality. Even girls need different watches and straps to match different clothes. Therefore, dial customization and personalized settings will be a big demand of users.

The third is social interaction. The biggest function of a mobile phone is communication. Using IM tools such as QQ and WeChat and checking email titles, these most basic communication functions can be accomplished better with a watch.

The fourth is efficiency tools. Liu Chao's understanding of efficiency tools is very broad. It is not just a memo or to-do list in the usual sense, but can include all needs to make life more efficient. "Taking a taxi, ordering a meal, simple search, weather forecast, payment and other things do not require a large screen, they can be done well on a small screen. So I think this kind of thing will probably be done well on a watch in the future." For example, the watch now has a weather forecast function, and it may plan to add a taxi function in the future.

Liu Chao sees the watch as a life assistant on the wrist, which can truly realize the "legendary O2O". Making life more convenient is the core value of smart wearable devices, and it is also what he wants users to experience.

In addition to software, user experience also needs hardware support. He is not satisfied with the current Android Wear hardware: "I don't think Moto 360 can represent the level of a flagship product in the Android camp. Although it is the best Android Wear now, it is not good enough."

Like consumers, Liu Chao is looking forward to the emergence of better wearable hardware products. Although the current products are mainly Android Wear, he is very much looking forward to the stimulation of the entire market by Apple Watch. His ideal smart watch should have a standby time of 5-7 days and a screen display quality close to that of a watch. He estimates that this development will be very fast and can be realized within this year.

“I hope everyone who makes watches will be successful.”

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Liu Chao attended this year's CES. He found that the number of wearable wrist devices has increased significantly compared to last year - "If there were 30 wrist products last year, there are 300 this year. The technology that was rare a year ago has now become popular." At the recent Apple earnings conference, Cook just confirmed that Apple Watch will be launched in April this year, and consumers and developers are eagerly waiting.

Standing at this "windward point", Liu Chao strongly felt the trend of smart watches coming.

"In fact, it feels like it's coming soon. Time is very tight and we don't have much time left to polish the product."

Wearable devices are a brand new hardware platform, and it is foreseeable that they will be the next battlefield for developers to compete. Liu Chao compared it to the development of feature phones in 2002 and 2003 and Android phones in 2009. "In fact, if we are lucky enough at this stage, when we look back three years later, everyone may think that it would be a good time to start investing in smart watches in 2015."

Although there are still relatively few Android Wear developers in China, Watch Control is not the only one. Another startup, Mobvoi, has developed its own deeply customized ROM Ticwear based on Android Wear. Mobvoi's founder, Li Zhifei, is also an engineer from Google. His product has core voice search and semantic analysis technologies. To use a mobile phone as an analogy, if Watch Control is the Xiaomi desktop, Ticwear is MIUI. The two have different product lines, but they are both competing for the market share of early users.

It is not difficult to imagine that in the future domestic hardware manufacturers will produce their own smart watch devices, and giants such as BAT will also stake their claim in the software market, and the competition will be quite fierce.

However, at this stage, rather than worrying about competition, Liu Chao is more looking forward to the rise of smart watches as a consumer electronics category and the booming development of the entire ecosystem.

"If hardware manufacturers like Xiaomi, Huawei and Lenovo all release their own devices, it will definitely be a good thing for us who make apps." The successful experience of Ledongli also gave Liu Chao experience and confidence: "When I was working on Ledongli, the team worked very well together in all aspects. For example, the search engine on the watch may not be able to compete with Baidu. But we still have many areas where we can compete with them, and there will be differentiated competition."

In Liu Chao's opinion, although watch assistants are similar to mobile phone assistants, due to the difference in usage scenarios, there are more possibilities for changes in user needs. For example, there is a strong demand for app stores on mobile phones, but this is not necessarily the case on watches, so more breakthrough ideas are needed in terms of products.

User experience and product design are the strengths of the watch control team. Liu Chao emphasized: "User experience and user needs are always the first priority, and the product form can change with the changes in user needs. I hope to provide the four major needs of users. As long as users can use it more widely, I don’t care how it is achieved."

When talking about competitors, Liu Chao showed the confidence and generosity rarely seen in entrepreneurs: "I hope that all watchmakers can succeed."