Microsoft Launches Outlook Watch Face for Android Wear

When Microsoft first delivered Outlook for Android Wear last August, it provided basic email, calendar and notification support. But thanks to a major new update, you can now use Outlook as your watch face and stay on top of your day at a glance.

“Outlook promises to keep you connected, focused and on top of what matters,” Microsoft explains. “Wearables promise to always be with you and provide relevant, timely information at glance. Combined, they have the potential to help us get more done in life and work.”

To that end, the new Outlook watch face for Android Wear lets you see an overview of your day’s schedule along with key details about where you need to be next. The default view, shown here, packs a bunch of useful information onto the tiny screen: The time, of course (it is still a watch, after all), your next appointment, the number of unread emails, and, graphically around the edges of the display, your blocked-off busy times for the day. (The colors of these events match the colors of the calendars you’ve added to Outlook on your Android phone.)

If you don’t have any pending appointments, the watch face will instead display the senders of the most recent few emails.

When you tap on the watch face-based appointment, the normal appointment view appears. You can scroll down to view more, and keep scrolling to see subsequent appointments.

As emails arrive, you will get notifications on the Android Wear device that you can tap to read and interact with. “You can take the same actions that are available in Outlook for Android, including archive, schedule, flag and delete,” Microsoft says. “If the email includes an event invitation, you’ll also have the ability to RSVP in a snap. If you need to reply, Outlook provides a preset list of responses and supports voice dictation.” You also get reminders for upcoming events, of course.

And as noted by the shot at the top of the article, the Outlook watch face for Android Wear also offers some nice personalize features, where you can customize it with background and accent colors of your choosing.

Looks interesting.