Introducing the ProtoPie Smartwatch Solution

We’re thrilled to announce that the ProtoPie Smartwatch Solution is officially available from today. This means your team can finally build realistic smartwatch prototypes, creating fully immersive connected experiences involving wearables.

Smartwatch prototyping from A to Z

Smartwatches and other wearables might not yet be as popular as smartphones, but the market is growing. The global smartwatch market was valued at a volume of 68.59 million units in 2020, and it’s expected to reach 230.30 million units by 2026. Smartwatches are especially popular in the health and fitness industries due to their lightweight and detailed monitoring capabilities.

And industry big-hitters are taking note. With Samsung and Google partnering last year to essentially merge Tizen with Wear OS, and with the eagerly anticipated launch of Google’s in-house smartwatch likely coming at some stage in 2022, we expect the smartwatch market to grow significantly in the near future. This means more digital products for smartwatches, and Wear OS in particular.

Before we introduced the ProtoPie Smartwatch Solution, there simply was no high-fidelity prototyping tool that allowed designers to create realistic end-to-end prototypes for smartwatch apps. Designers would have to rely on engineers to manually code prototypes before deploying them on actual smartwatches. Or, they would resort to simply using their imagination without having anything tangible to test.

Jeff Hoefs, UX Lead for Wear OS at Google, was an early adopter of the ProtoPie Smartwatch Solution. He states: “We have been using ProtoPie for a few years as a rapid prototyping tool. However, the experience was limited to evaluating smartwatch concepts on a phone or laptop screen. Now, with the new ProtoPie Smartwatch Solution, our designers and researchers can explore concepts on real hardware, on the user’s wrist, and in the context of use.”

ProtoPie Smartwatch Solution

Thanks to ProtoPie’s latest offering, design teams can prototype the following:

• Smartwatch apps that you can test on an actual smartwatch.
• Cross-device experiences for your smartwatch app, e.g., a smartwatch app that communicates with a smartphone app.

This solution requires using ProtoPie Player for Wear OS. This works in conjunction with ProtoPie Connect, a companion app to our Enterprise plan that facilitates all cross-device communication across prototypes, hardware, and APIs.

You might be wondering: “This all sounds great, but what specific use-cases can I prototype and test with the ProtoPie Smartwatch Solution?”. To name just a few:

• A smartwatch fitness app that communicates with a user’s smartphone during workouts.
• Using a smartwatch as a connected smart home hub, allowing users to control their home’s lights, temperature, and appliances.
• A voice assistant on your smartwatch that can unlock your electric car.

These examples are just the tip of the iceberg. By using the ProtoPie Smartwatch Solution, you’ll be ready to embrace the present—and create the future—of connected, cross-device user experiences.

Interested in the ProtoPie Smartwatch Solution?

The ProtoPie Smartwatch Solution is our enterprise-grade solution for thriving organizations that need to prototype immersive smartwatch experiences from A to Z.

To learn more about the ProtoPie Smartwatch Solution, feel free to get in touch with us.