Smartwatches have become more than just notification centers, particularly those running on the Android Wear platform. Aside from the health and tracking features, your wearable, with the assist of some apps, have made it possible for you to reply (within limited range) to text messages sent to your phone. One such app is WearResponse and it brings you more than just the standard responses available.
Google has of course installed standard responses on your Android Wear, but who would really appreciate receiving a terse “Ok” “Call you later” or “In a meeting” kind of message? With WearResponse, you get to create three custom responses, and if you pay for the app, you actually get an unlimited number of canned messages which you can use as you respond to SMS without taking out your smartphone, coming straight from the watch.
What’s cooler is that when you first install WearResponse on your smartwatch and smartphone, it will scan your past text messages to check out what words and phrases you usually use, and then you can choose to add these to your canned responses. You also have to make sure that you stop notifications of your default SMS app to your wearable because you will receive double notifications (unless you prefer it that way). To reply to an incoming message, swipe over the reply button and then swipe down to choose from the responses. Unfortunately, the Google standard responses are still included there and you’ll see them first before the customized WearResponse messages.
The first version of the app required that the connected smartphone be rooted, but version 2.0 now works with any Android phone. You can get WearResponse from the Google Play Store for free but you need to have a $3 upgrade to get the unlimited customized messages option.
