Android Wear Gets More Gesture Controls, Audio Feedback

The recently rolled out update to Android Wear, which Google ceremoniously said adds support for cellular data on smartwatches, turned out to also quietly add support for a number of gestures.

Google is making it easier for Android Wear users to navigate and trigger actions using arm flicks. Users, for instance, will be able to take action on a card by pushing their arm down.

You can now see your first card by quickly flicking your wrist away from you then slowly turn it back towards you. You can also navigate to the next card by quickly flicking wrist away from you and then slowly bring it back towards you. For scrolling back to a card, you can turn your wrist away from yourself, and then quickly flick it back towards you, the company explains.

That's not all. Here are the rest of the features, as described by Google in an Android Wear support document.

"To see more details or take an action: Hold your arm in front of you and quickly push down, and bring it back normally to the original position. Pushing down on a card will take you to that card's first action. Pushing down a second time will select that first action, which is the most common action. There is not a way to select or perform an action after the first action using solely gestures.

To go back: Hold your arm in front of you and quickly pivot up, and bring it back normally to the original position.

Note: Pivoting up does not exit an app. To go back to the watch face, shake your wrist.

If you're replying to a message, you can use this pivot up gesture to see the original message. You can also use this gesture to cancel a voice action before it sends.

To open the apps menu: When on the main watch face screen, hold your arm in front of you and quickly push down, and bring it back normally to the original position.

To pull down settings from the watch face: When on the main watch face screen, slowly turn wrist away from you then quickly flick back towards you."

In addition, the latest Android Wear 1.4 firmware update also adds support for audio feedback, ushering in audio alerts on those smartwatches that have speakers, apart from calling support. There's no mention of "Support for sending WhatsApp, WeChat, Viber, Telegram, and Nextplus messages with your voice or via touch," which was leaked in the changelog of an earlier version. So it is probably coming in a future update.