Build your own Moto 360 smartwatch with Moto Maker

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It’s time to create a watch that suits your style. 

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Back in 2013, Motorola launched an innovative web portal, Moto Maker, that enabled users to personalize their own Moto X smartphone. Nearly two years later, that made-to-order feature has now expanded to the company’s Moto 360 smartwatch, which led sales among all Android Wear devices over the last 12 months.

Moto 360 customization options include three different finishes (dark metal, light metal and champagne gold), nine separate band styles (including leather, metal and a slick mono-link design), as well as 11 pre-installed watch face options. Once you get your device, it’s easy to swap watch faces from its collection or through Google Play. This is great news for those simply looking to coordinate with their outfit, or dress it up a bit for a more professional or formal setting.

Without question, it appears that Motorola is looking to take advantage of the Moto 360’s popularity by extending the customization of its flagship product. And given the rise of the DIY culture and their fascination with modularity, having the ability to create something in line with one’s own style is pretty cool. For those with a little fancier taste, both the gold and metal bands come with a premium price of $30 and $50, respectively.

With countless combinations available, there’s a watch that can appeal to every type of personality. In fact, wearers can create their own as well as choose among some of Motorola’s pre-configured samples such as “Professor Hip” with a light finish case and a cognac leather band, “Golden Goddess” with a champagne gold finish case and cognac leather band, and “On-the-Go Stylist” with a finish case and a champagne gold metal band.

As a recent Adafruit teardown revealed, the Moto 360 lineup is powered by an MXT112S capacitive controller — which gives it a nice little touch if we may say so ourselves. Embodying a sleek, round face and Gorilla Glass protective layering, the comfortable device puts everything you need right on your wrist, whether that’s check the weather and traffic or send a text.

Ready to build your own? You can browse through various options and get started on Moto Maker here.

Report: 720,000 Android Wear devices shipped in 2014

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Motorola’s Moto 360 led the pack in sales for Android Wear devices last year, a new report reveals.

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According to the latest report from research firm Canalys, over 720,000 Android Wear-based devices were shipped in 2014, making up 16% of the total 4.6 smart wearable bands sold. Over the 12-month span, the [MXT112S powered] Motorola Moto 360 led the pack among other companies, while LG’s round G Watch R performed significantly better than its original G Watch, and Asus and Sony entered the market with their own Android Wear devices.

Outside of the Android ecosystem, Pebble shipped a total of one million units from its 2013 launch through to the end of 2014. Continual software updates, an increase in apps, and price cuts in the fall were among the key factors in helping to maintain strong sales in the second half of the year. Meanwhile, Fitbit remained the global leader in the basic wearable band market.

Following a completely different strategy to other vendors, Xiaomi shipped over a million units of its Mi Band, the colorful and affordable basic device. As Canalys notes, this included one day of sales of over 103,000 units.

“Though the Mi Band is a lower-margin product than competing devices, Xiaomi entered the wearables market with a unique strategy, and its shipment volumes show how quickly a company can become a major force in a segment based solely on the size of the Chinese market,” explained Canalys Research Analyst Jason Low.

All eyes will now turn to Apple as the market awaits the arrival of its new smartwatch this April. The research firm points out that the product will dramatically grow the market for smart bands and wearables overall.

“Apple made the right decisions with its WatchKit software development kit to maximize battery life for the platform, and the Apple Watch will offer leading energy efficiency,” said Canalys Analyst Daniel Matte. “Android Wear will need to improve significantly in the future, and we believe it will do so.”

“Ironically, it could be the Apple Watch launch that determines the future of Google’s platform, and the degree to which OEMs back it,” writes TechCrunch’’s Darrell Etherington. “While it’s designed as a competitor to what Android is doing with its own wearable platform, its presence in the press and in consumer minds could encourage more Android device owners to look around for their own equivalent, considering the other option is switching platforms altogether. Even if initial comparisons greatly favor Cupertino’s wrist-based computer, long-term, Android Wear could benefit.”

Android Wear became much more plentiful in the latter half of 2014. However, the numbers likely have OEMs watching and waiting to see how the market evolves from here, given that there’s already price pressure on some of these.

Interested in reading more? You can find the report here.

Nexus 6 teardown reveals Atmel MXT640T inside

Hailed as the iPhone 6’s brother from an Android mother, the time for Google’s Nexus 6 has arrived. As soon as the crew over at iFixit got their hands on the new device, which was developed in collaboration with Motorola, we knew what came next! The team dismantled the recently-unveiled phablet to offer a closer glimpse at its insides.

(Source: iFixit)

Catering to consumers’ appetite for larger displays, Nexus 6 boasts a 5.96-inch touchscreen and features a 2560 x 1440 AMOLED panel. in addition, it runs on Google’s new operating system, Android 5.0 Lollipop, and will be available in both 32GB and 64GB models.

The teardown revealed that the phablet packs 3GB of LPDDR3 RAM, a Snapdragon 805 SoC, various cellular components from Qualcomm, a 3220 mAh “non-removable” battery, as well as 13 MP rear-facing camera and a 2 MP front-facing camera.

(Source: iFixit)

After freeing the motherboard from the display assembly, iFixit spotted its lone IC: an Atmel MXT640T touchscreen controller.

(Source: iFixit)

And for those who frequently break or enjoy tearing apart their phones, you’re in luck. The flagship device received a repairability score of 7 out of 10. Interested in getting up close and personal with the Nexus 6? You can check out the entire step-by-step teardown here.

Turn your Moto 360 into a classic 007 smartwatch

Though the Atmel MXT112S powered Moto 360 has only been out for a few days, that was plenty of time for the Makers at Phandroid to apply one of the coolest custom smartwatch interfaces ever to the device’s circular display. If you grew up playing GoldenEye 007 on Nintendo 64, you will surely appreciate the Secret Agent Watchface. After all, a bold watch calls for some bold measures.

Inspired by the classic video game, the design emulates that of 007 agent James Bond’s wrist-adorned gadget that allows you to read mission files, check your health and body armor, detonate explosives, and employ a bolt-blasting laser.

“The watchface faithfully recreates that same UI, complete with health and armor bars (now used to show battery life). While the watchface originally launched before a round Android Wear device existed, it now finds itself perfectly at home on the Moto 360,” Phandroid writes.

The smartwatch face carries over colored tiles and the classic deep-dark-green menu interface. Rather than monitoring how close you are to termination, the round display reveals the wearer’s real-life, non-deteriorating health via the red bar on the left, while the device’s battery life using the blue bar on the right.

“Smartwatch software can only improve from its rather rudimentary beginnings. As device and operating system makers like Google hand developers more tools through application programming interfaces (APIs), the smartwatch app marketplace will grow to include more of the fun hacks that the device makers don’t think up themselves. Though smartwatches may never be as robust a playground for developers as smartphone have been, clever interface designs and neat tricks that give us the ability to customize and tinker with our smartwatches will only continue to blossom over the coming months.”

And while the display looks incredibly accurate to that of Mr. Bond’s, sadly no laser beam is included.

Motorola unveils Moto X and Moto 360 smartwatch

Last week at IFA 2014, Motorola announced a refresh of its product line with the revealing of the new Moto X and Moto 360 smartwatch.

In what may have been the most highly-anticipated Android Wear smartwatch to date, the Moto 360 comes equipped with a bold round face, heart rate monitor, both black and gray metal finishes. The wearable boasts a 1.5-inch 320×290 display with a backlit LCD touchscreen, powered by an Atmel MXT112S capacitive controller as a recent iFixit teardown revealed (in blue above). The body comes in at a diameter of 46mm and height of 11.5mm, while the leather band model weighs 49g – essentially, the same weight as your everyday wristwatch. Enhancing its durability, the attractive display is protected by a Gorilla Glass 3 covering.

Like all Android Wear devices, the Moto 360 features a wake-on-wrist-flick and automatic voice response via the “Ok Google” trigger, which allows a wearer to send texts, set reminders and such. It is compatible with any Android phone or tablet running Android 4.3 or higher, and has IP67 water resistance with submersion of up to 1 meter for 30 minutes. What this means: Shower, good. Swimming bad.

The Moto 360’s 320mAh battery should get you about a day of mixed usage. Additionally, the smartwatch comes with a pretty standard 4GB of internal storage and 512MB of RAM, in addition to the vibration motor included for notifications. Like other smartwatches, the Motorola accessory can be connected to your mobile device using Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy.

(Source: Business Insider)

Not just beauty but it has brains as well! Unlike some of its competition, the Moto 360’s round dial not only tracks and displays a wearer’s heart rate, but with its embedded monitor and pedometer, can analyze activity intensity.

In terms of pricing, the Moto 360 will go for $249 in the U.S. and £199 in the UK with a wider European rollout expected in October. Within three hours of making the Moto 360 smartwatch available on sale in the U.S., Google Play Store and Motorola’s website listed it as sold out.

Motorola has several competitors in the market, including the similarly-shaped LG G Watch R, the Samsung Gear S, the Sony SmartWatch 3 and the newly-unveiled Asus Zenwatch. With that said, the Atmel powered Moto 360 looks to differentiate itself with its wristwatch-like appearance — comprised of stainless steel and comes with a Horween leather band.

(Source: Forbes)

Motorola has now also taken aim at the affordable smartphone market with the new rendition of its Moto X flagship Android smartphone. The Moto X sports a 5.2-inch 1080p full HD display, 13-megapixel camera and a new dual LED flash that the company says provides more balanced light. Under its 1080p AMOLED display protected by Corning Gorilla Glass, there lies a 2.5Ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM.

“It’s high quality screen: it’s sharper, brighter, bigger, and just nicer to look at than the previous model. It has tremendous viewing angles, punchy colors, and can be seen in bright sunlight without issue. It’s everything the display on a flagship smartphone in 2014 should be,” Verge‘s Dan Seifert reviews.

The new Moto X measures 140.8 x 72.4mm (5.54 x 2.85 inches) with its tapered back ranging from 3.8 to 9.9mm (0.15-0.38 inches). To make room for the bigger screen, the phone itself needed to grow just a bit. The second generation Moto X retains the curved back from the original, but with a slightly slimmer width; as a result, the sloped design allows for the device to rest comfortably in a user’s hand. Despite its increased size, the Moto X may actually feel smaller than it should because of its new, metal frame that replaced the plastic on its predecessor.

“The new Moto X is shorter than the HTC One M8 and the Galaxy S5, while still having a larger display than either of them. It’s big, but not nearly as big as I normally expect a 5.2-inch smartphone to be. Part of that is because Motorola has maximized the screen’s footprint and shrunk the bezel surrounding it even further than before. Even so, it’s still managed to find room for a camera, light sensors, a new speaker, and new infrared sensors on the front of the phone,” Verge reveals.

Not only can you still launch the Moto X camera with a flick of the wrist, that’s not all. The new 13Mp camera starts to cache photos before you press the shutter so that it can capture the best looking photo, filtering out blurry shots or pics of people blinking. If you like taking selfies, this feature will surely be music to your ears!

(Source: Verge)

As with the original Moto X, the look of the new device is customizable through Motorola’s Moto Maker online design studio — adding new colors and materials like eco-friendly woods and new leather finishes.

You can now create your own launch phrase as well, ranging from a simple “Hello, Moto X” to something that better suits your personality like “What’s up, Moto X?” Motorola has included a number of new Moto X features such as voice, gestures and more, thereby helping deliver a distinct Moto X user experience. These include Moto Voice, Moto Assist (changes the phone’s options based on your current activity), Moto Display (shows notifications on the display even when the display is off) and Moto Actions (three IR sensors on the front of the device enable a user to wake the device with a simple wave of the hand).

Here is a breakdown of the Moto X’s specs that enable many of its key features:

• 5.2-inch 1080P Display
• 2.5Ghz Snapdragon 801 processor
• 2GB of RAM
• 16GB and 32GB storage options
• 2,300mAh battery
• 13MP rear facing camera w/ 4k video
• Dual LED ring Flash
• Android 4.4 KitKat

“The new Moto X looks and feels like the premium smartphone it should,” Verge concludes.

Those looking to purchase the new flagship device can do so for only $99.99 on-contract, or $499.99 (£419.99) if you decide to get an unlocked one. Currently, it appears that the U.S. carriers will likely be AT&T and Verizon. As for availability, the Moto X will be out later this month in countries across North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia.