New Wearable Project UI Development
Two things worn at once, and neither of them is the phone. The earbuds have no screen, so the watch becomes the only place they can be seen.
Galaxy Buds2 and Galaxy Gear are both on the body, and the work was what passes between them. Everything about the earbuds a person might need to see has to appear somewhere other than the earbuds — which of them is connected, how much charge is left, what mode they are in. The nearest surface is the wrist.
A wrist screen is read in glances of about a second, so it cannot simply become a small second screen for the buds. What earns a place there has to be weighed against what could be a tone in the ear instead, and against what should wait for a screen large enough to deserve it.
The two channels are not interchangeable, because one of them is public. Raising a wrist is something other people see; a sound in the ear is not. Which of the two carries a given message is a decision about more than convenience.
UI development for the pairing, run in two phases across more than a year.