We've reviewed most of the major entrants into the smartwatch arena at this point—the Galaxy Gear, the Gear 2 and Gear Fit, and the Qualcomm Toq—but aside from demos at shows, I've stayed away from all of them. I've even skipped the Pebble Steel, which is generally well-regarded compared to the rest of that list.
Because, let's face it: it's pretty clear that none of those wearables are destined for large-scale, mass-market success. They're the MP3 players before the iPod. They're the smartphones before the iPhone. They're niche gadgets for early adopters who are intrigued by their dim glimmer of conceptual promise and can ignore or work around their obvious shortcomings.
Android Wear was the first smartwatch operating system that made me really want to try living with one. Yes, it's another take on the phone-notifications-on-your-wrist thing that smartwatches can't seem to move away from, but as we explore in our software review, it's a version of that idea that will actually work with many existing Android phones and apps. The OS is certainly in a better starting position than it was for any of the others listed above.
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