Wearable Android: Android Wear and Google FIT App Development

Build "Wearable" Applications on the Android Wear and Google Fit Platforms

Wearable Android: Android Wear and Google FIT App Development
This book covers wearable computing and wearable application development particularly for Android Wear (smartwatches) and Google Fit (fitness sensors). It provides relevant history, background and core concepts of wearable computing and ubiquitous computing, as a foundation for designing/developing applications for the Android Wear and Google Fit platforms. This book is intended for Android wearable enthusiasts, technologists and software developers.

• Gain insight into  “wearables” in the modern consumer ecosystem of a multitude of devices, ubiquitous computing, cloud computing and intelligent personal assistants
• Learn the Android Wear and Google Fit APIs and jump-start hands-on development including: setting up an Android development environment suitable for Android Wear and Google Fit , setting up smartwatch and fitness devices for development and debugging , writing applications that install and execute on Android Wear (smartwatch) devices , and  applications that run on your handheld Android devices and find and connect to fitness sensors and access fitness data, and more
• Catch up with the new Android 5.0 “Lollipop”, Android Studio and the gradle based build system

Android Wearable Programming

Expand on your Android development capabilities by building applications for Android Wear

Android Wearable Programming
About This Book

• Get to grips with the Android Wear and Google Glass SDK to build your own wearable apps
• Incorporate voice and input features into your wearable apps and develop custom interfaces for Android TV
• A step-by-step guide to creating applications that run directly on Android Wear devices and Google Glass

Who This Book Is For
If you are an Android developer who wants to learn how to build applications for the Android Wear platform, then this is the book for you. This book only requires a basic knowledge of Android programming. Familiarity with development IDEs such as Android Studio, IntelliJ IDEA, or Eclipse will be helpful.

What You Will Learn

• Get introduced to the Android Wear and Google Glass SDK
• Create your own basic and custom notifications for Android Wear by using Android notifications
• Develop custom Android wearable watch faces and debug them over Bluetooth prior to packaging
• Deploy your application to the handheld device or the Google Play Store
• Develop apps that have the ability to send and receive binary blobs of data from the handheld device to the wearable device
• Create custom layouts for the Android TV platform conforming to the Android TV design principles
• Build effective user interfaces for the Google Glass platform
• Incorporate voice and input features into your Android wearable app

In Detail
This book will introduce you to the very popular Android Wear platform with hands-on instructions for building Android Wear applications. You will start with an introduction to the architecture of Android, followed by an in-depth look at the design of Android applications and user interfaces using Android Studio. You will see how to create basic and custom notifications for your apps, and synchronize data from the wearable device with the handheld mobile device. More advanced topics such as intents, the Gradle build configuration and the implementation of build variants, and packaging and deploying from a single project code base are also covered.

By the end of this book, you will have a good understanding of wearable programming, and be confident enough to write programs for building Android applications that run on Android Wear.

Pro Android Wearables: Building Apps for Smartwatches

Pro Android Wearables details how to design and build Android Wear apps for new and unique Android wearable device types, such as Google Android smartwatches, which use the new WatchFaces API, as well as health-monitoring features and other cool features such as altimeters and compasses. It's time to take your Android 5 Wear application development skills and experience to the next level and get exposure to a whole new world of hardware.

As smartwatches continue to grab major IoT headlines, there is a growing interest in building Android apps that run on these wearables, which are now being offered by dozens of major manufacturers. This means more revenue earning opportunity for today's indie app developers. Additionally, this book provides new media design concepts which relate to using media assets, as well as how to optimize Wear applications for low-power, single-core, dual-core or quad-core CPUs, and how to use the IntelliJ Android Studio IDE, and the Android device emulators for popular new wearable devices.

What you’ll learn

• How to build apps beyond those that just run on Android smartphones and tablets
• How to master the fundamentals of wearable app design
• How to build apps for wearables like smartwatches

Who this book is for
This book is for Android app developers new to Android apps development for embeddable appliances, wearables, and related hardware. This book takes your Android app development beyond the smartphone and tablet.

Table of Contents
1. Introduction to Android Wearables
2. Setting Up an Android 5 Wearables Application Development Workstation
3. A Foundation for Android Wearables
4. Exploring Android Studio
5. Android Virtual Devices
6. Introduction to Android Watch Faces Design
7. Program Watch Faces for Wear
8. A Watch Faces Timing Engine
9. Implement a WatchFaces Engine
10. WatchFaces Vector Design
11. WatchFaces Bitmap Design
12. WatchFaces Digital Imaging
13. Watch Face Configuration Companion Activity
14. Watch Face Configuration Companion Activity Utility and Wearable API
15. Wearables Application Testing
16. Wear API Deprecation
17. The Future of Android IoT APIs

Step-by-step Android Wear Application Development

Step-by-step tutorials that leads you through the essential concepts, tools, and techniques for developing applications for smart watches using the Android Wear SDK. 

Step-by-step Android Wear Application Development
Have you ever thought to yourself: “I wish I had learned to develop iPhone apps when the iPhone first came out”? Very few people had the foresight to act on the fact that computing platforms are continuously getting smaller, cheaper, faster, and more intimate. Computers have evolved from fixed room-sized machines to desktops, laptops, and handheld devices. The same disruptive transition is about to take place again. Only this time, instead of taking your smartphone out of your pocket, the computer has become wearable.

This is a great time to start learning Android Wearable development. Consumers will come to embrace smartwatches because they will be relatively unobtrusive and will allow them to do things that smartphones can’t.

Topics Covered

• Create native wearable apps using the Android SDK
• Build consistent UI layouts using Cards and CardFragments
• Learn all about the Wearable UI Library to build exciting and engaging apps
• Master the notification framework. Build notifications for handhelds apps that are automatically extended to Android Wear and learn how to build custom notifications on wearables to better support your brand
• Working with wearable sensors
• Use the Wearable Data Layer API to create native apps that can communicate securely with a paired smartphone
• Includes three exciting projects: 1) Build a car catalog app to browse through vehicles, take notes on them, and schedule test drives all within arms reach, 2) Build a fitness app to start, pause or stop a workout session and 3) Build an animated dice game using the handheld device as a remote control or the wearable’s accelerometer sensor to detect shake gestures in order to roll a die. You will learn how to animate shapes, establish a data connection between the mobile and Wear devices, and display a history of dice roll outcomes on the handheld device.

“Alex has written a masterful collection of tutorials, patterns, tips & tricks, and helpful insider hints that developers at any level will appreciate. The example apps are easy yet challenging, fun yet practical, and put together using best practices. You’ll really come away with a strong sense of how to build effective experiences for Google wearables.” 
- Jason Salas, Co-author, Designing & Developing for Google Glass

Who is this book for?

This book is for intermediate developers who know the basics of Android application development and want to quickly get up to speed and start developing apps for Android Wear. If you are a complete beginner to Android, don’t worry. The step-by-step tutorials are easy to follow and each exercise is followed by an in-depth source code explanation. This book is the best way to get a head start now developing apps for Android Wear.

Beginning Android Wearables

Although wearable devices have existed since the 70s, they have only recently become mainstream. Google Glass and Android Wear smartwatches, in particular, are relatively new devices that provide countless opportunities for creating innovative apps with unprecedented user experiences. Beginning Android Wearables gives you the skills you need to take part in the wearable revolution and to delight your users by providing the information they need at the tips of their fingers.

Beginning Android Wearables

This book is very practical and contains many examples that not only show you how to write code for Glass and Android Wear, but also demonstrate how to apply this code in the context of an app.

What you’ll learn

• Build notifications for handheld apps that are automatically shared with Glass or Android Wear, and learn to customize these notifications specifically for wearables
• Create apps that run directly on Android Wear devices and leverage the Android Wear SDK
• Use the wearable UI library to build effective user interfaces for Android Wear
• Use the wearable data layer API to share and synchronize data between a handheld device and Android Wear
• Build custom watch faces for Android Wear
• Build Glassware (that is, apps for Glass) using the Glass Development Kit (GDK)
• Use the views and widgets of the GDK to build effective user interfaces for Glass
• Receive user input on Glass with touchpad gestures, head gestures, and voice recognition
• Take pictures and record videos on Glass by either leveraging the native camera app or with the Camera API
• Utilize location providers and orientation sensors to build contextually sensitive apps

Who this book is for
This book only requires basic knowledge of Android programming. Prior to this book, you should have read or are at least comfortable with Android after using Apress tutorials, Android Apps for Absolute Beginners or Beginning Android

Table of Contents

Part I - Introduction
1. Introducing Android Wearables

Part II - Notifications
2. Reviewing Notifications for Android
3. Customizing Notifications for Wearables

Part III - Android Wear
4. Running Apps Directly on Android Wear
5. Android Wear UI Essentials
6. The Wearable Data Layer API
7. Creating Custom Watch Faces

Part IV - Google Glass
8. Running Apps Directly on Glass
9. Glass User Interface Essentials
10. Voice and Input
11. The Camera: Taking Pictures and Recording Video

Part V - Android Wear and Glass
12. Location and Orientation

Professional Android Wearables

The fast and easy way to get up and running on Android wearables

Professional Android Wearables
Written by an expert author team with years of hands-on experience in designing and building wearables, Professional Android Wearables covers how to use the Android Wear platform and other techniques to build real-world apps for a variety of wearables including smartbands, smartwatches, and smart glasses. In no time, you'll grasp how wearables can connect us to the Internet in more pervasive ways than with PCs, tablets, or mobile devices; how to build code using Google's Wear SDK for Android-enabled hardware devices; how Android Wear and other Android development techniques are capable of building several presented example projects; and much more.

Wearables are the next generation of smart mobile devices, it's no wonder you will want to master Android Wear SDK to build smart wearable apps for a multitude of form factors and applications.

• Shows you how to navigate Android Wear SDK
• Clearly explains how to use the Android Wear platform to build real-world apps
• The companion website includes source code for all of the projects described in the book

If you're an experienced Android developer looking to master Android Wear SDK to build wearable apps, you've come to the right place.