Professional Android™ Wearables

The fast and easy way to get up and running on 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. Professional AndroidTM Wearables 5 CONTENTS 15 INTRODUCTION 21 PART I: CONCEPTS 27 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO ANDROID WEARABLES 29 The Wearable Revolution 29 Dismantling the Computer: The Cyborg Dream 30 Software Everywhere 31 Fashion is More than Ski Jackets 32 Fitness 32 Time 33 Glasses 34 Summary 35 Recommended Reading 36 CHAPTER 2: THE INTERNET OF THINGS 37 How Wearables Relate to IoT 37 The Promise of Connectivity 38 Cisco’s Vision 39 Big Data 39 Connected Devices in the Home 40 Connected Devices on the Go 41 Wireless Sensor Networks 42 A Scenario of Use of WSN 42 Bluetooth Versus ZigBee 43 Smart Cities 43 Summary 44 Recommended Reading 44 CHAPTER 3: PLATFORMS AND TECHNOLOGY 45 Android Wear 45 Installing the Wear SDK 46 Working with the Android Wear Emulator 46 Working with a Real Wear-Enabled Device 48 Kick-starting Your Wear Development 50 Distributing Wear Apps on Google Play 51 Summary 52 PART II: BASIC BUILDING BLOCKS 53 CHAPTER 4: NOTIFICATIONS ON SMALL SCREENS 55 About Notifications 55 Pre-Wear Notification API 56 Wear Notifications 56 Building Notifications 58 The Simple Notification 59 Adding a Large Icon 60 Big Text Notification 61 Big Picture Notification 62 Updating a Notification 64 Adding Pages to Your Notifications 64 Adding Actions to Your Notifications 65 Adding a Standard Action 65 Adding Multiple Actions 67 Adding Wear-Only Actions 67 Adding an Action without the Extra Page 68 Extra Options 69 Hiding the Application Icon 69 Moving the Notification 70 Setting the Scroll to the Bottom 70 Removing a Notification 71 Stacking Notifications 71 Summary 74 Recommended Reading 74 CHAPTER 5: DEVELOPING WEAR APPS 75 The Wear SDK 75 Design Considerations 75 Wearable UI Library 76 Creating the Wear Project 77 Editing the Gradle Files 81 Loading Layouts 82 Using WatchViewStub 82 Using InsetActivity 84 Building the User Interface 87 Adding Text to Your User Interface 87 CardFrame 87 CardScrollView 88 CardFragment 89 Displaying Images 92 Loading a Static Image 93 Adding a Progress Update 94 Handling Lists in Wear 95 Using WearableListView 95 The 2D Picker 98 Providing Positive Feedback 100 Starting the Success Feedback 101 Starting the Open-on-Phone Animation 102 Starting the Failure Feedback 102 Summary 103 Recommended Reading 103 CHAPTER 6: VOICE INPUT 105 Talking to Your Wrist 105 Types of Voice Interaction 106 Using System-Provided Voice Commands 108 Just Launch an App 110 Hack an Existing Intent to Launch Your App 111 Launch Your App with Voice the “Right” Way 111 The Wear APIs 111 Data API 112 Message API 112 Node API 112 Answering to Notifications: Capturing Your Voice into an App 112 Creating a Simple App Sending a Notification 113 Creating Your Empty Project 113 Modifying the Gradle File 116 Modifying the App’s Layout 117 Adding the Right Callback Function 119 Getting Your App to Receive a Voice Command 121 Revising the Callback Function 121 Adding a Broadcast Receiver 123 Modifying the App’s Layout to Include a Text Field 124 Adding the New Class to the Manifest File 125 Adding the Reply String to the Strings File 126 How It Works 126 Showing the Answer on the App’s Screen 127 Summary 129 Recommended Reading 130 CHAPTER 7: PUSHING DATA 131 Checking the Example 132 Phone’s MyActivityPhone.java 133 Phone’s AndroidManifest.xml 137 Wearable’s MyActivityWear.java 138 Wearable’s AndroidManifest.xml 140 Wearable’s Listener 141 Making Your Google API Client from Scratch 142 Start with a Clean Project 143 The Phone’s MyActivityPhone.java 143 The Phone’s AndroidManifest.xml 145 The Phone’s DataLayerListenerService 146 MyActivityWear.java 147 Wear’s Android Manifest File 150 The Listener on the Wearable’s Side 150 The Final Result 151 Summary 152 Recommended Reading 152 CHAPTER 8: LOCATION-BASED SERVICES ON ANDROID WEAR 153 Changing How Location Works 153 Accessing the Current Location 154 Enabling GPS support 154 Using the New APIs 154 Determining GPS Availability 157 Requesting the Last Known Location 157 Requesting Location Updates 158 Being Picky About Location Updates 160 Showing Your Street Address 161 Testing Geocoder Availability 161 Getting the Current Address for a Location 161 Summary 163 Recommended Reading 163 PART III: PROJECTS 165 CHAPTER 9: ANDROID WEAR AS ACTIVITY TRACKER 167 What Are Activity Trackers? 167 Wear as an Activity Tracker 168 Step Detector 168 Step Counter 169 Building the WalkKeeper App 169 Calculating Calories 169 Creating the Project 171 Selecting Gender 171 Selecting Weight 176 Selecting Height 178 The WalkKeeper Activity 180 Building the User Interface 180 Connecting the User Interface 181 Getting the Stored Settings 183 Reading the Sensor Data 184 Calculating and Updating the User Interface 186 Keeping the Activity Open 188 Improvements 191 Summary 191 CHAPTER 10: SMARTWATCH AS INPUT 193 Android Wear as a Game Controller 193 A Note on Sensors 194 Detecting Gestures 195 Building the Dice Game 195 Creating the Project 195 Designing a User Interface 195 Android Wear GUI 196 Mobile GUI 197 Accessing Sensors 199 Generating the Die Value 201 Connecting to Mobile 202 The Mobile Connection 202 The Wear Connection 204 Keeping the Screen On 208 The Dice Game 208 Improvements 208 Summary 209 Recommended Reading 209 CHAPTER 11: BUILD YOUR OWN GLASS 211 Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality 212 Augmented Reality 212 Google Glass 213 Virtual Reality 214 VR on a Phone 215 Building Your Own Glasses 216 Lenses 216 The Simplest Box Possible 217 The Simplest App 219 The cardboard.jar Library 219 Looking at the Code 220 The Glasses’ MyActivityPhone.java 220 The Glasses’ AndroidManifest.xml 222 A Couple More Classes 223 Getting Your Cardboard to Talk to Your Smartwatch 226 Start from the Previous Project 226 The Phone’s MyActivityPhone.java 226 The Phone’s AndroidManifest.xml 228 The Phone’s DataLayerListenerService 229 MyActivityWear.java 230 The Wear Android Manifest File 233 The Final Result 233 Summary 233 INDEX 235 ADVERT 242 EULA 243 Presents a fast and easy way to get up and running on Android wearables. This book 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. It clearly explains how to use the Android Wear platform to build real-world apps. Provides information on 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