Ted Baker, Mango and Nicole Miller bring a little style to Google's smartwatch party
If you’ve been with Android Wear from the very beginning, then you’ll know there’s not always been a great selection of watch faces to choose from.
But things are changing. The Android Wear 1.3 update released earlier this year brought more customisable watch faces and with the arrival of the Fossil Q Founder and the Tag Heuer Connected, traditional watch makers have been having their say on the software as well as the sleek hardware.
If you’ve read our Connected review, you’ll know we were big fans of the Swiss watchmaker’s approach to watch faces.
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Google has decided to embrace the more stylish direction Android Wear has taken in 2015 by introducing a selection of designer watch faces, which are now free to download from the Play Store.
The list of designers on board are Ted Baker, Melissa Joy Manning, Vivienne Tam, Nicole Miller, Y-3, Mango, Zoe Jordan, Harajuku Kawaii! and Asics.
For any Sony SmartWatch 3 owners out there concerned that these new faces are built just for the likes of the Moto 360, Huawei Watch and the LG Watch Urbane, they’re optimised for rectangular displays as well.
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We booted up Sony’s Android Wear watch to try some out. The Ted Baker face (image above) feels like it’s better suited to a 360 or Huawei Watch and comes with a male and female style options. With a brighter strap, the colourful Harajuku Kawaii! face is quite a nice fit and is certainly one of the better options.
We’ll be spending some more time trying out the other designer faces with the rest of the Android Wear smartwatch family to see which ones are best suited for round or rectangular watch designs.
If you want to download the new Android Wear designer watch faces, they’re available now on the Google Play Store. iPhone owners will have to wait a few more days before the faces are up for grabs via the iOS Android Wear app.
