HandyGPSWear

This app was specifically designed to take full advantage of Android Wear watches that include their own GPS receivers, like the Sony Smartwatch 3. However, it will work on other smartwatches like the Moto 360 too since it can also use your phone's GPS.

With this app you can record a tracklog and how far you've walked on bushwalks and hikes. If you find anything interesting along the way you can record its location as a waypoint and upload it to your phone later to view in Google Earth. The app can even guide you back to a waypoint. So now, you can leave your phone behind and just wear your watch !

The app has five pages that you can swipe between:

* The first page shows your location information including the UTM easting/northing and zone or lat/lon coordinates, altitude, GPS accuracy and speed/direction or odometer.
* The second page lists your recorded waypoints and allows you to mark new waypoints.
* The third page shows the current time, sunrise, sunset, and battery level.
* The fourth page allows you to open the Compass, Goto, Map and Elevation Profile pages.It also has a button to show the current location as an MGRS grid reference. Note that the compass will only work if you have magnetic field and accelerometer sensors in your watch.
* The fifth page allows you to change the settings such as coordinate type and units (metres and kilometres per hour, feet and miles per hour, or nautical miles and knots). You can scroll this page down for more options.

To mark a waypoint, click the "+" button at the top of the waypoints page and enter a name. To view a previously recorded waypoint, press on the waypoint name. Waypoints and tracklogs recorded on the watch can be uploaded to your phone when connected via BlueTooth if the companion app is running on the phone. You can also download a KML file from the HandyGPSWear folder on your phone to your watch. (Currently you need to re-start the app to refresh the waypoint list after doing this).

You can press the brightness button on the main page to reduce the screen brightness when you're not looking at it to conserve battery power(*). It is recommended that you leave the main coordinates page visible when you're recording tracklogs and using the odometer.

All coordinates use the global standard datum, WGS84. Lat/Lon coords can be shown in decimal degrees, Deg-Min-Sec or Deg-Min formats.

Before installing the app, make sure that your phone is paired to your smartwatch using Bluetooth and Google's Android Wear app is running. After installation, HandyGPSWear will run either when your smart watch is paired to an Android phone via BlueTooth, or stand-alone if the watch has its own GPS receiver.

To calibrate the compass page, move your watch in a figure-8 pattern in the air and/or rotate it on all three 3D axes.

NOTE: Due to the small space requirements, GPS receivers in smart watches generally do not work as well as the ones in phones. Under heavy vegetation cover in particular, you may find it hard to maintain a GPS lock.

IMPORTANT: When you're finished using the app swipe to close it rather than pressing the physical home button since otherwise the app will continue running and waste battery power.

See also, HandyListPlus and HandyWorldTime for Android Wear.