The new wave of Android Wear devices announced recently includes the Huawei Watch, the Moto 360 Gen 2, LG Urbane 2 and of course the Asus ZenWatch 2. The Huawei Watch was tinkered with by Android Police and found to contain an as yet unused (and unannounced) speaker, but it appears it’s not alone with the Asus ZenWatch 2 also containing what appears to be a speaker inside.
The speaker was shown off by Google+ user David Sears in the Huawei Watch community, showing what appears to be a disassembled Asus ZenWatch 2 with a speaker part sitting between the two halves.
The utility of a speaker with Android Wear devices is at this stage non-existent, but then so is LTE functionality as was announced with the LG Urbane 2, but there could be developments to use this hardware sooner than you think. Since the release of Android Wear last year, Google has stuck fairly solidly to a 3-monthly update cycle for Android Wear, introducing new features and in one of the most recent updates, enabling existing hardware (Wi-Fi) for a number of watches.
The last two devices considered ‘Gen 2’ in Android Wear, the Moto 360 Gen 2 and LG Urbane 2 are announced and the Moto 360 gen 2 is currently available from a number of sources – so it’s only a matter of time before someone cracks the case open on one to see if there’s a speaker inside one of these units.
What the speaker could be used for is anyones guess at this stage: playing music? taking calls? notifications? but Google will obviously have some sort of plan and I can’t wait to see what it is.
Got a feeling when the tag watch is released we will know more. I will see when/if I get my Huawei watch tomorrow.
You missed a possible usage. The audio nearby stuff could also be a usage! Could be used in that way in a lot of ways but one could be security, just off the top of my head.
Same as the Google On Hub or whatever its called.. the router. I think it also has a speaker in it.