Gadgetory

android smart watches have a few new tricks that cannot be done on an Apple watch I'm Bridget Carey and this is your cnet update if you own a SmartWatch running Android soon you won't need to always have your phone by your side to get alerts google is rolling out a few updates to Android wear smartwatches one of which is Wi-Fi support if your Android watch is connected to a Wi-Fi network you do not need to have your phone with you to get notifications send messages or use apps now for this to work your phone wherever you left it needs to be on a nice to have a data connection so for example let's say you're at work and your work has Wi-Fi but you accidentally left your phone at home the watch can still get messages or if your gym has Wi-Fi you do not need to bring your phone with you to stay in touch with the world that's not something that Apple watch can do to get messages on the Apple watch you need to have your phone with you or the phone at least needs to be somewhere nearby on the same Wi-Fi network as your watch Android watches have picked up a few other fun tricks if your hands are full you don't need to touch the screen to scroll through cards you can just flick your wrist outward or inward and if you set your screen to stay on now apps can also stay on the screen they just turn black and white wing their idle and that's helpful if you want to keep your grocery shopping list on your wrist and you don't want to keep opening up the app multiple times android also added a little feature for emojis if you want to respond to a text message with an emoji you can use your finger to draw on the screen and that means there's some Android engineer out there that had a practice drawing poo emojis in various ways to teach the system poo doodles what a job the first watch to get these updates is the LG watch urbane and we don't know when that model is even coming out yet but LG is having an event next week on April twenty-eighth to show off its next big phone the LG g4 and maybe we'll also learn when that watch is going to go on sale and how much it'll cost and in other software update news it's not a good day to be the owner of the wink hub the smart home router suddenly stopped working for some customers because the company neglected to update an expiring security certificate the hub is like the brain that controls all the smart light switches and locks in a home but this security flaw rendered machines useless and customers need to tinker with settings or requests to get a new hub in the mail Corky which partners with General Electric promotes its wink hubs heavily at major retailers like home depot and target but now all sales have been suspended until it can fix the issue smart home systems like the wink are known for being buggy but this is a whole other level of bug that's your tech news update you can head over to cnet.com and follow me on Twitter to stay updated from our studios in New York I'm Bridget Carey