Wearable apps have gone beyond fancy prototypes. Android wearable apps are similar to mobile apps but the most obvious difference is screen size. They are available in the form of fit bands, wrist watches, smart glasses, smart sneakers, and self-evolving category gadgets. And best wearable devices apps are all you need!
According to Statista the number of wearable device users in the United States from 2014 to 2022 is as shown in the image. In 2017, the number of wearable device users amounted to 45.8 million.
Let’s have a look at some market leaders in wearable apps.
Top 18 Best Smartwatch Apps To Use In 2023
Google Maps
Google Maps is one of the most popular smartwatch apps free download existing out there. The app is being used to measure distances, navigate through maps, or even locate destinations virtually.
Features of Google Maps
- Installing it in your smartwatch can help you navigate towards your destinations without any hassle
- Because of its compatibility with smartwatches, you do not need to rely on your phone all the time to reach your destination
- It comes with an in-built compass and a global mapping system for any destination in the world
- You can check traffic conditions on the route towards your destination
- Provides alternate routes as well, if available.
Bring
This one of the best apps on wear OS lets you create coordinated shopping lists with your friends and family. You can share the shopping list with whoever you want and let them add items to the list.
Features of Google Maps
- Make and share shopping lists with your friends, family members, or colleagues
- Manage and plan multiple shopping lists with added members
- Find cooking content everyday with recipes, ingredients, tips, etc
- Like and share your favorite recipes with anyone you want
- You can download and install this app for free on your smartwatch
Uber
Uber is one of the best wearable apps existing in the market to book cabs. The app provides you with all features on your smartwatch to make cab booking more convenient. You can use Uber to book rides from 600+ airports and in 10,000+ cities around the world.
Features of Uber
- You can book a cab, call an Uber driver, or check the status from your smartwatch anytime
- Uber gives you price details of your ride on the watch screen itself
- The smartwatch can also be used to share your ride details with whoever you want
- While riding, if required, you can use the smartwatch to call emergency services
- The in-built rating system lets you give feedback on your ride once it’s over.
App In Air
If you are flying and want to stay up-to-date even when offline, you can use an App in the Air without thinking twice. This one of the best Wear OS apps lets you check real-time flight status, airport tips, and in-airport navigation maps.
Features of App in the Air
- Check everything about your flight like status, timings, tips, guidelines, etc
- App in the Air lets you find out eating locations, internet passwords of public Wifis, security tips, guidelines, etc for 9,000 airports around the world
- With a quick link, the app lets you book a cab for yourself
- Features like flight status, gate changes can be checked offline. The app alerts you via texts which require no data roaming
- You can use the app for automatic check-in for up to 2 passengers.
Calculator
This pocket calculator is one of the best smartwatch apps free download that lets you calculate from your smartwatch itself. You can also command “Ok Google” and start the calculator on your watch.
The app can be used for basic and scientific calculations without any cost.
Features of Calculator For Wear OS
- You can choose from Classic & Flat themes to change the interface look of this one of the best apps for wear OS
- The app is capable of solving basic functions like division, multiplication, subtraction, etc
- You can perform scientific calculations like trigonometric functions, square root function, modulo pi, etc
- The app is free to install and use
- For now, the app is compatible with limited devices like HUAWEI watch Moto 360 Gen 1&2, Asus Zenwatch, etc.
Simple Wear
Simple wear lets you change your smartphone settings from your smartwatch. You can install it to modify settings like Wifi, DND, Bluetooth, etc. However, to function, this app needs to be installed on the phone and smartwatch, both.
Features of Simple wear
- Check Location status, modify settings without opening the smartphone
- Lock phone, switch on the flashlight, change data connection settings as well
- You can also change and check the battery percentage and charging status in the watch
- Set sleep-timer to switch off your phone as per your preference
- DND can put your phone on silent and hide notifications from popping up.
Authenticator Plus
Now, securing your social media accounts or e-mail accounts is more convenient due to extra security layers like 2-step verification.
This app generates the code for you and with the smartwatch, you can take a glimpse of it without having to open your phone.
Features of Authenticator Plus
- You can sync these smartwatch apps on multiple devices including smartphones, tablets, Amazon kindle, and smartwatch
- The app comes with 256-bit AES encryption and pin lock security to keep your code safe
- You can make more than one account in the app and organize them
- Accounts can be directly imported from your Gmail account
- The app is capable of creating automatic backups of your accounts for extra security.
Glide
Glide is one of the Wear OS top apps that lets you make stream video calls on your smartwatch. You can revert for video messages through texts, or voice messages without using your phone. The app has an easy-to-use interface for fast video messaging.
Features of Glide
- You can watch and listen to video messages on your smartwatch with this one of the best apps for the smartwatch.
- Glide lets you reply to video messages from your smartwatch in the form of texts or audio messages
- The app is free to use on any device
- You can add cool filters to your video messages before forwarding them
- The app comes with some extra premium features which can be unlocked by paying for them.
Spotify
Spotify is one of the best free music apps existing for smartwatches. The app lets you play free music from its library full of millions of songs. You can use Spotify on multiple platforms like Smartphones, smartwatches, tablets, windows, etc.
Features of Spotify
- The app is free to use. However, the premium subscription can get rid of ads and lets you save the music offline
- Spotify has millions of songs from all over the world for your entertainment
- You can sync Spotify from multiple devices and continue your music on any of them
- You can create playlists and add your friends to those playlists. They will be able to add more songs in the same
- Spotify is a huge collection of international songs, podcasts, radio shows, albums, etc.
RunKeeper
Runkeeper is an extremely popular app in the fitness domain. You can install this app on your smartwatch to keep track of your running and exercise routine.
Simply use it to set goals for weight loss, running pace, and other fitness stuff. To get the most out of this fitness app, you need to have a subscription – which is a little expensive.
Features of a Runkeeper:
- Tab on the Workout cell and from there you can detail your next run
- Goal completion confetti
- Goal Coach notifications for Runkeeper Go users (iOS only)
- Track different activity types
- Tagging friends on a workout
- Auto pause, Runkeeper apps knows when you have stopped moving and will pause your trip automatically
- Adjusting audio cues
- Night mode
- The countdown timer is a handy feature when you need to give yourself a few moments before you start a workout.
Calm
Do you know the secret to a creative mind? Well, it is sound sleep and meditation. The purpose of this amazing app Calm is to make you feel refreshed. Calm offers meditation lessons for a daily meditation routine.
If you have trouble sleeping or staying calm, this is one of the best apps you must install. A notable feature of the Calm app is that it has got sleep stories and a relaxing music gallery.
Features of Calm
- New daily meditation
- Have over 100 sleep stories
- Discover a music library that grows every week
- Masterclass by the world-renowned experts in the field of mindfulness
- Soundscapes
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This simple car locator app is exactly the solution you need to locate your vehicle!
Features of Parking
- Save a new parking reminder on a map with just one click
- History of your previous parking places
- Automatic parking detection using your car’s Bluetooth device
- User-defined zones with no automatic parking notifications
- Multiple navigation options to your car
- Indoor or underground parking option
- Parking car finder app for Android smartwatches.
Google Keep
This one of the tops wear OS apps lets you create notes in your smartwatch. You do not need to pull your smartphone out of your pocket to write anything.
Google Keep allows your smartwatch to use its interface to create short notes and access saved ones.
Features of Google Keep
- Set reminders, create notes, make lists, and check off your list from your smartwatch
- Dictating thoughts can convert them into notes for this one of the top wear OS apps
- You can categorize notes with colors as per your choice
- Use “Ok Google” and create notes without even touching the screen
- Add #labels to segregate your notes to avoid them from mixing up.
Accuweather
AccuWeather is one of the widely installed smartwatch apps by users. Additionally, you can install it to see the current temperature, weather forecast, radar, and other meteorological notifications.
As a matter of fact, you will also see details related to smaller statistics such as humidity, wind speed, etc.
You can easily filter the forecasts based on your needs and preferences. The free versions consist of ads, but you can get rid of them by upgrading to the pro versions.
Features of Accuweather
- The accurate weather radar you know from Accuweather
- Timely tropical storm radar tracking to see where and when storms might hit
- Weather radar views for water vapor, rainfall, sustained winds, and even storm surges.
Recodr
Recordr is amongst the most popular Android wearable apps installed by millions of people worldwide. This app lets users record surrounding sounds by just a single tap on the right icon on their smartwatches.
It has a modern and fluid layout that makes it a breeze to use for people. An amazing feature is that it provides facilities for raw data, noise capture, lectures as well as interviews.
You can easily manage the sounds for louder and softer pitches. It also lets you remove echo, as needed.
The supported audio file formats are aac, wav, 3gpp, amr, mp3, and mp4. It extends support to audio at 44kHz, 48kHz, 16kHz, and 8kHz sample rates.
Features of Recodr
- Manage audio recordings from your watch. You can share, delete, or rename audio files as per your preference
- With sound quality customization, you can increase the number of files by reducing the size
- With echo suppression and noise-canceling feature, you can save crystal clear audio recordings
- The app even works when the display is off without any hassle
- The app is free to install but has in-app premium features to purchase.
Citymapper
Citymapper is one of the most amazing apps that you must install on your smartwatch if you use public transit in the cities that it covers. You can also install it if you are planning to visit one of its supported cities.
You can get a lot of information about bus, train, subway, ferry, and also taxi data – right on the smartwatch on your wrist.
The only feature that limits its potential is that it is useful in a limited number of cities and is not helpful if you don’t live in any of them.
Features of Citymapper
- Find the best route
- Find the step-by-step directions
- Experience on-stop-shop mobility
- Smarten up your daily transit navigation.
DuoLingo
This free app lets you learn languages such as Spanish, French, German, Danish, and Swedish. Unsurprisingly, the feature set is a bit pared down on the Wear app, but you’ll still be able to bone up with flashcards and the like.
If you have a few minutes to kill on the go, this is a great way to pass the time.
Features of Duolingo
- It’s free for real
- It’s effective. 34 hours of Duolingo are equivalent to a semester of university-level education.
- Experience on-stop-shop mobility
- Learn English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Turkish, and many more languages, for free.
Sleep As Android
This one of the tops wear OS apps keeps a track of your sleep schedule. You can sync it with your wearable device and it will use sensors to track your sleep. Moreover, it also wakes you up according to your schedule.
Features of Sleep As Android
- Sonar tracks your sleep schedule without the need of keeping the phone on the bed
- Natural sound alarms like birds, sea, storms, or your playlist are used to wake you up
- You can record your sleep talk, snoring, or irregular sleeping through this app
- Sleep scores provide a detailed analysis of efficiency, duration, irregularities, or snoring
- Can be integrated with health services like Google Fit and S Health Integration.
This one of the tops wear OS apps keeps a track of your sleep schedule. You can sync it with your wearable device and it will use sensors to track your sleep. Moreover, it also wakes you up according to your schedule.
Here Are Our Top 3 Reasons To Build A Wearable App For Your Future.
Portability
The wearables are portable devices, we can carry them everywhere and hence the success of the app purely depends on the experience of the user. It is a customer-based app and you must not develop it like the Smartphone app.
For example, the “smart shoe” app, is the next-level initiative for die-hard trekkers. This is a customer-based app in which the shoes are connected with an app that helps to direct the direction and notify the customer with mild vibration.
When the customer walks into the unknown territories without being glued to the Smartphone, the smart shoe wearable apps assist them in the right way through mild vibration. How cool is that isn’t it?
Coming to the fitness point, the smart shoe app helps to discover the daily walking distance, trekking distance, and running distance in the app. It shows every day burned calories and describes how fit you are? The app shows the fitness tracker for the best fitness and health care.
The wearable apps are more trending, flexible, and convenient to use. The wearable apps provide fitness tracking, security profiling, and network monitoring. It saves time for busy bees by enabling real-time data monitoring and offers excellent operational efficiency.
Size Is The Key Factor
In wearable apps, size is the key factor. It is easy to develop more and more apps instantly with certain templates in the Smartphone app, but in the case of wearable apps, the same idea will not work out, a creative and unique feature is required for the development of the wearable app.
It is because the loading of huge apps in the smaller device is more complicated and may result in poor performance. The app development must have certain limitations as far as power is concerned.
The app developer must have a concern in the development of wearable apps as the Smartwatches are portable in size but need many unique and creative features for the Play store installation.
Enhance The Experience Of The End-User
The most important aspect taken into wearable app development is the bank upon offering unmatched User Experience (UX) to the end-user. UX is vital for both the mobile app and wearable app but the program design is different. The main advantage of the wearable app over the mobile app is the user does not need to carry mobile while using the wearable app.
However, the wearable apps still need more scope of further improvement because the users may have not felt as powerful as original apps. The developer is also facing dew challenges while working on wearable apps and their functions. As the technology keeps changing, the developer must focus on the fine-tuning of development to increase the number of users.
Roadblocks In Wearable App Development
1. Challenges In Building Architecture
Wearable technology is nothing but additional software added to the Mobile app. You can implement wearable technology additionally in the camera, fitness band, watches, smart glass, shoes, etc.
In wearable app development, the build architecture should be open and must not have restrictions to the end-user and in the end-to-end solution. So it is essential to create a structure flexible to identify RFID, tags, intelligent devices, and hardware solutions.
Technical challenge:
The most complicated challenge in mobile app development is architecture. Different applications need a unique environment. First, design a heterogeneous architecture with existing technologies and second provide the best communication and real-time information through smartphones and wireless devices.
2. Rising Expectations Of Users
The developer must concentrate more on creative ways to enable users of all ages to use these wearables. The developer must have a concern especially on teens and millennials who can adopt this most trending wearable device.
The current generations are looking for an outstanding gadget, which is more convenient to use and saves their time. The current generation’s expectations have increased to discerning levels, they expect more and more from smart devices like wearables.
Wearable devices are still a new breed in the market and a challenging task for the developer. The user experience and the functionality of the app are always on the top priority list.
Benefits Of Wearable Apps
Offering Faster Assess
The developer faces difficulty in designing UX but the features offer faster access for the end-user. It is easy to handle and fast to access.
Simple Designs
A simple design on UX helps for immediate access to an app. It is simple in design, easy to operate, and user-friendly. The GPS navigation tracking is fast and you can access it immediately and it shows 100 % success.
Fitness Band
The fitness band wearable apps are blooming in the healthcare industry. In recent days, people are much more concerned about body fitting and start to search for apps related to body fitting, fitness treatment, health care apps, and diet control apps.
The smartwatches keep an eye on fitness activities during the gym and help to know the cholesterol, and burn calories during fitness time. During fitness time, it is not necessary to carry a Smartphone which is a disturbance in the gym.
Increase Satisfaction
The injection of new technology in the app increases the satisfaction of its users. Pick the right wearable for fitness and business that makes sense on investment and it is worth it.
A significant uplift in the satisfaction and engagement enables the user for more reference and the developer for fine-tune development. A wearable device increases the prevalence in society even more surprising.
FAQs
How to develop a Smartwatch application?
The development process of a SmartWatch application is almost similar to the process of developing a smartphone application. Steps from research and design to development and testing are the same as mobile applications. The only difference is in the approach. The intricacies of the design of the SmartWatch application are not what is needed in mobile applications (wise move).
How to estimate the cost of the development of the wearable app?
The estimated cost of wearable application development depends on factors such as:
- The characteristics
- Number of platforms
- Design complexity
- Development approach, etc.
Contact us to know how much does it cost to make a wearable application.
How to make money with a mobile app?
The best way to take to make money with a mobile app will be linking with a smartphone application and following monetization models such as in the implementation of advertising, in-app purchases, subscription models, etc.
What is a prototype in Wearable product design?
A prototype in product design is a preliminary version of a product that is created to test and refine its design, functionality, and usability. It allows designers and manufacturers to identify potential issues and make necessary adjustments before investing in full-scale production. A product prototype can be physical or digital and can range from a simple mockup to a fully functional model. Hiring a skilled product prototype developer can help bring your product vision to life and ensure that it meets your design and functionality requirements.