The best Android ar apps of 2015

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Published 24 Dec 2015

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Disclosure
Android ar grew up this year
best wear apps 2015 primary

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There were some big updates to Android ar in 2015, new watches finally started showing up after a long dry spell. Even if you have a fancy new watch with its spiffy new Android ar OS, you’re still not taking full advantage of having a tiny computer on your wrist.

For that you need apps, good ones! These are the best Android ar-compatible apps from 2015, all of which are worthy of being on your wrist.

Do Button
best wear apps 2015 do

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The folks from IFTTT launched a new app in 2015 called Do Button, it has Android ar support. y is that a big deal? Because IFTTT can be used to automate a ton of services products using recipes following the formula: if this, then that. Do Button basically makes the ‘“if” part a button that you can tap at any time to perform an action. l those buttons are available on your watch too. So what can you do? t’s of stuff including control s Hue lights, send emails, more. As an example, you can make a button that rings your phone with a dummy call from IFTTT. rfect for getting out of an awkward situation using only your watch.

Do Button (free)

Field Trip
best wear apps 2015 field trip

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The Field Trip app from Niantic (formerly part of ) is an app geared toward letting you know when there’s cool stuff nearby. It used to only work on your phone, but in 2015 an Android ar module was added. Getting location-based updates from Field Trip makes a ton of sense on your watch. en something cool is close, a card will pop up on the watch with basic info, a map, a link to open the app on your phone. You can chance your app settings to control how often points of interest appear what sort of locations will be included.

Field Trip (free)

ghtr
best wear apps 2015 lightr

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ghtr is a simple app meant exclusively for Android ar, but it’s one I use frequently. This app lets you override the intentionally short backlight timeout on Android ar. It’s great if you’re using your watch for managing a list or reading feeds (we’ll get to that later) you’re sick of it going to sleep every few seconds. It’ll drain your battery faster; that’s the tradeoff. ghtr includes timeout settings as long as a minute, significantly longer than the five seconds you get by default. That goes up to five minutes in the pro version.

ghtr (free, $1 in-app upgrade)

Authenticator
best wear apps 2015 authenticator

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Keeping your online accounts secure is important, 2-factor authentication is the best tool you have to do that. This feature is available on most services (eg. , Dropbox, so on) requires a secondary code along with your password before you can log into your account. The code is usually delivered via SMS or generated with an app like Authenticator. It just so happens that Authenticator now supports Android ar, which is really convenient. st open the Authenticator app on your watch it’ll show you the necessary code.

Authenticator (free)

ar Charging dget
best wear apps 2015 wear charging widget

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Motorola has a cool charging widget on its watches, a few other OEMs have tried to ape the design. Not wanting to straight up rip the Motorola design off, these haven’t been very good attempts. ar Charging dget takes the Motorola design adds a ton of customization including weather, date, colors, clock modes. st drop it on the charger, your customized widget will come up. The basic circular charging widgets are free, but the ones with cool backgrounds are only available in the €1 pro version.

ar Charging dget (free, €1 in-app upgrade)

oto Gallery for Android ar
best wear apps 2015 photo gallery

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A lot of Android phones have great cameras these days, so you probably take more pictures than you once did. oto Gallery for Android ar is exactly what it sounds like—a gallery app for your watch. Adapting phone apps to a watch is usually a bad idea, but this one works pretty well. oto Gallery has all the image folders on your phone preview the images right on the watch. You can tell a lot about the image if your watch has a good screen. From the watch, you have options to share, delete, open an image on your phone. oto Gallery for Android ar is free to try, but it costs $1.49 if you want to see more than 50 pictures per folder.

oto Gallery for Android ar (free, $1.49 in-app upgrade)

MoveUp! Multier
best wear apps 2015 moveup

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Android ar has a dedicated timer app that was added in a semi-recent update, but it’s pretty lacking in features. MoveUp! Multier, on the other h, has all the features you could ever want in a timer app for your watch. You can have multiple simultaneous timers, timer names, custom colors, vibration patterns, more. There’s a $1.99 pro version upgrade that adds unlimited timers. It looks like the free version is limited to four, which is still plenty for most people.

MoveUp! Multier (free, $1.99 in-app upgrade)

Shazam
best wear apps 2015 shazam

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Shazam has existed for ages, but in 2015 an Android ar module was added. Now you don’t have to break out the phone to figure out what that song is. st open the Shazam app on your watch it’ll use the built-in mic to listen for music ID the track. The matches will be saved in your phone’s Shazam app for future reference. You can even get real-time lyrics synced to the song, sometimes. Shazam is free, but there are some ads in the phone app. The Android ar functionality is unaffected.

Shazam (free)

Source
best wear apps 2015 source

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Source is just one of many capable feed readers for Android, but it has the best Android ar integration of any of them. This app was released to the public in early 2015 after a short beta test, it integrates with several feed aggregators like Feedly The Old Reader. On Android ar, you can scroll through your entire feed, which is hy for triaging a big list of unread content. The watch also has the ability to pull up all the text you’d see on the phone. This will eat into your battery life, but that’s the price you pay.

Source ($1)

At H Tuner
best wear apps 2015 at h tuner

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If you play a musical instrument, you know how often you need to tune up. There are plenty of apps on the ay Store that can act as instrument tuners, but At H Tuner sts out by being mainly an Android ar app. It works on your phone too, but you can tell from the design this app is intended to be on your wrist. It works on a wide range of tunings, is apparently very accurate. It picks up a low A, for example, which many other tuners can’t. It’s $2 in the ay Store, but it seems to be the best at what it does.

At H Tuner ($2)