When Android Wear was showcased at Google I/O last month, some interesting apps were demo’ed with it, like Lyft for calling a car, Eat24 for ordering food, and Allthecooks for step-by-step recipe guidance while cooking. All were rather quirky use cases, ones you wouldn’t necessarily envision first when thinking about smartwatches. Since then, a few more apps have added Wear support, in a way that makes us rethink the utility and power of the platform. It turns out that watches can do much more than fitness and notifications, and we’re just scratching the surface now.

Duolingo

Duolingo, the learning platform, was one of the first apps to support Android Wear. Launch the app on your watch and you will be able to pick between its 6 different languages to start studying. Duolingo’s system lends itself wonderfully to the watch platform, providing small flashcard-like questions and gestures to interact with the answers.

Duolingo brings language learning to your wrist

Download: Duolingo

IFTTT

IFTTT is well-known for its trigger recipes and automations spanning multiple online services. The app only recently came to Android, with many new abilities, like turning off notifications at a certain location, setting the latest camera capture as a wallpaper, and more.

IFTTT can use Wear as both a trigger and an action. This allows you to send notifications to your wrist when something occurs (for example when there’s a new published RSS item in a feed, or when you haven’t reached your Fitbit goal by 2pm) or to use the watch to launch certain actions, like muting your phone, sending a canned message, or even triggering a fake phone call to excuse yourself from an annoying conversation(!) The sky is the limit with IFTTT, so in order to get an idea of the many options available, you can browse the different recipes already created.

Use Wear as a trigger or an action in IFTTT recipes

Download: IFTTT

musicXmatch

musicXmatch is a music player with synchronized lyrics integration. On Android, the app surfaces a small floating window with the lyrics, whether you are listening through its built-in player or another app like Play Music or Spotify.

The app recently added Wear support, bringing the album art and song details to show you what you are listening to, along with its handy lyrics feature. You can read the words on your wrist while listening to the song, without having to turn on your phone. The lyrics will also automatically scroll with the music, so you don’t have to lift a finger. This feature is excellent when you are walking or running and happen across a song that has you stunned, lyrics-wise.

Read your song’s lyrics on your watch

Download: musicXmatch

Tinder

Socializing through Tinder may not be for everyone, but you simply have to applaud the app’s simple interface and interaction. A swipe left means you are dismissing the profile, right means you like the person. If both of you happen to like each other, a match is created and you are able to talk. This simple UI carries over beautifully to Wear, with simple cards and profile views. It almost makes more sense on a watch too, thanks to its location-based algorithms that only show you people nearby, letting you find matches quickly wherever you are.

Tinder’s Wear app lets you find nearby matches

Download: Tinder

Android Wear is still in its infancy, and we are just beginning to see the many ways in which apps can integrate with these watches, adding more functionality and options that we wouldn’t necessarily associate with watches at first. Many of these are surprisingly useful too, as shown above.

What is your favorite Android Wear app? Or what app are you waiting to see add support for Wear as soon as possible?