all this to come together, developers like you will need to not only

understand how to develop for these devices, but how to develop for
low-power, resource-constrained scenarios. A device manufacturer
can set the stage with power-sipping devices, but app developers
need to stick to the game plan to keep from overtaxing the device’s
battery.

Connections
Aside from the question of what you expect a device to do, there is
also the matter of how it does it. A wearable can’t do everything, so
it needs to rely on devices around it. As a result, it needs to make
connections to other devices: a smartphone is a hub that connects
the wearable to the cloud.
But what will it say to the hub? It’s tempting to imagine a hub that’s
just a gateway, allowing the wearable device to make direct connec‐
tions over whatever network the hub is connected to. But that
assumes the wearable has a lot of memory and computational
power. Memory and computational power are relatively cheap, but
for any work they do, there is a corresponding power draw. Once
again, with a constraint comes an opportunity to define a better
interaction model.
There are a few key interactions that you’ll engage in when you con‐
nect to the world beyond your wrist:
Phone notifications
As much as possible, you will want your users to interact with
your apps directly through the wearable device. But there will be
times, such as when a user needs to provide credentials to con‐
nect a web app to your app, that you’ll need to direct the user’s
attention to his phone to complete a task.
Interacting with the Internet
A Garmin wearable can interact with web apps, typically
through an API. When this happens, interactions need to be
quick and brief. There’s no reason to pull down 16 kilobytes of
JSON when you only need a 16-byte string from it. Save mem‐
ory, save power.
Be part of the IoT
Users are surrounded by other smart devices, from sensors to
entertainment devices to smart homes. Through the use of

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