While there have been countless rumors of Google building many other wearable devices such as a smartwatch, the company hasn’t confirmed if it indeed working on such products. That doesn’t mean all wearables are totally off its radar. Google’s Senior Vice President of Android and Chrome Sundar Pichai has revealed at SXSW today that an Android SDK or software development kit for wearable devices is going to be released in two weeks. The company hasn’t committed to other wearables as yet, but it definitely wants to establish itself as a serious player. Using the SDK, companies will be able to develop new wearables which will be powered by Android.
This simply won’t just be limited to smartwatches. There are already a number of such devices out there that are powered by Android, but none of them have been able to perform too spectacularly. Pichai says that they Google says wearables, its thinking “much more broadly,” than just smartwatches. The intention here seems to be to make Android an essential part of wearable devices regardless of the form factor they choose to adopt.
So where do Google’s smartwatch ambitions fit in, if it has any? Whatever the company ends up creating to support wearable devices, including smartwatches, it can obviously use it for a product of its own. There have been rumors of LG and Google teaming up to develop a smartwatch, but Google hasn’t dropped any hints about it just yet. What would be interesting to see is how the Android SDK for wearables is utilized to create the next crop of wearable devices.
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