Pokémon Go, real-world gaming and smartwatches
In the span of less than a week after its US launch, Pokémon Go took the world by storm, broke App Store records, and became universally known as the first game succeeding at getting gamers off their couch and wandering into the real world in droves.
Beyond the excitement of seeing what is likely the beginning of a new era for mobile gaming, our team at Little Labs saw in Pokémon Go the perfect example of an experience that could benefit from a smartwatch component. The real-world/digital-world hybrid nature of the game indeed lends itself perfectly to wearables, which seamlessly bridge your digital life into reality by surfacing it directly on your wrist. This breaks the psychological barrier of having to pull your phone out of your pocket, unlock your device, and launch a specific app. Wearables and smartwatches surface these services directly into your physical life with zero friction; these two worlds are no longer separated.
Niantic and Nintendo were quick to realize this opportunity by creating a wearable dedicated to the Pokémon Go experience — the Pokemon Go Plus bracelet. Despite its clear limitations (no screen and only one single physical button) the first batch of Pokemon Go Plus wearables flew off the shelves and its international released delayed from July to September to ramp up production and meet the demand. But why buy a dedicated piece of hardware when the same could be achieved with a smartwatch and its most underrated feature: the watch face.
Watch faces: the 1st real digital dashboard
Watch faces are “micro-apps” running in the foreground of your smartwatch at all times. They have the unique property of being always accessible to the user with only the flick of a wrist, without requiring the user to unlock any screen or even launch an app. They are today’s most frictionless experience in our mobile world and the closest thing to having a constantly accessible digital dashboard without having to strap it to your face.
Little Labs is today’s leader in the watch face market with its Facer platform, allowing anybody to design, build, and distribute watch faces on all major smartwatches in a matter of minutes. With over 6k watch faces already created on the platform, you’d be hard pressed not to find something that fits your style or functionality requirements:
While digital watch faces are, in their most “naive” format, mainly used today to give the user the time and a few other basic pieces of information like weather or battery status, they are becoming increasingly useful and interactive with the introduction of “complications” APIs, first by Apple, and shortly by Google as well with Android Wear 2.0.
Complications allow watch faces to surface additional information to the user at a glance, but also provide quick interactions with apps while your phone stays in your pocket. The data provided by these complications can either be provided by the watch face itself, or by 3rd party apps that it interfaces with — like Pokémon Go.
The Pokémon Go watch face concept
As we anxiously wait for the release of Android Wear 2.0 and its Complication API, our design team got to work on creating a concept for a Pokémon Go watch face that could leverage these features and enhance the game experience for smartwatch users. The result of our design experiment can be found below:
The watch face can be broken down in a few different components:
The watch face background
Using the complication API, the watch face will extract the user’s team and display a different background based on the his/her allegiance. Each team background will also evolve with the user’s XP level to allow users to showcase their Pokémon Go status to all their envious friends.
Android Wear 2.0 Complications
Using the new Complication API, the Pokémon Go watch face will offer the user the ability to passively access crucial game information at all times without needing to pull their phone out of their pocket and wait for the app to load, thus saving their phone battery for catching the pokemon. The proposed complications would be:
Nearby Pokémon complication
Refreshed in real-time, this complication will allow the user to always know which Pokémon might be in the area and finally catch a glimpse of that Vaporeon you’ve been after for so long.
Gym Status complication
The Gym Status complication, for more advanced players will show the number of Pokemon currently in a gym, the ETA to collect a reward, and a red indicator if the gym is being attacked.
Pokéstop complication
The Pokestop complication will provide the user with the ability to see at a glance if Pokestop is within range and if it includes a lure module. Never miss an opportunity to collect more Pokéballs!
Pokédex complication
The Pokédex complication will be an interactive complication intended for “micro-downtimes” where the user wants to browse his/her collection of Pokemon or brag about it to friends without loading the whole app. Tapping the complication will cycle through the Pokemon already caught, will show how many candies are left before they can evolve, and a red indicator if an evolution is ready.
More to come soon…
Our whole team at Little Labs cannot wait for Android Wear 2.0 to be released to unlock the full capabilities of watch faces and is hoping to see Niantic and Google team up to produce an official watch face for Pokémon Go. In the meantime, let us know what you think of the watch face concept in the comments section!
Little Labs is the leader in the watch face market with its Facer platform, and is already trusted by top media companies like FOX, Sony, CBS, the Tetris company and a growing number of top tier brands for their smartwatch components. For partnerships and general inquiries, contact us at hello@little-labs.com
