title: Android Activity Recognition on Wearables
body: <p>I'm researching ways on how to do activity recognition using an android smartwatch. Currently, I'm focusing on detecting whether the user is walking or standing still. My first idea was to use the built in step counter, but then I came across the Android Activity Recognition API (I'm relatively new to Android^^) which seems to be used in mobile apps only.</p>
  
  <p>I'm now stucking at answering the following questions:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Is the current API already making use of a connected wearable device?
  (e.g. automatically accessing built-in wearable sensors) </li>
  <li>Is there a seperate API available for Android Wear?</li>
  <li>Is there any other best practice on how to use wearables for activity recognition? (especially walking and standing still)</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>During my research I've already tried the following things:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Reading through the Android Activity Recognition Guide</li>
  <li>Reading through <a href="http://www.gpsbusinessnews.com/Google-s-Activity-Recognition-API-Beyond-Just-Location-Context_a4249.html" rel="nofollow">this article</a> about Google's Activity Recognition API</li>
  <li>Implementing a simple Android Wear App which uses the current Activity Recognition API. I tested the app on my LG G Watch without success. It seems like I can connect to the ActivityRecognitionClient but I never receive any activity updates. I tried the same code on my Nexus 5 - everything works fine.</li>
  <li>Reading through <a href="http://androidcommunity.com/play-service-update-lets-you-make-purchases-from-in-app-ads-20140507/" rel="nofollow">this post</a> about Google Play Services. Here the author is like "...We like the Activity Recognition API for <strong>Android Wear</strong>, as we’ve always thought the location tracking technology was a great backbone for this type of functionality...". So according to this, there is a seperate API, right?</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>I would be very thankful for any helpful information from you guys. In my opinion, a cool thing (see first question) would be to automatically detect a connected wearable device and use its sensors for enhancing the accurancy when the mobile phone is unsure about the current user's activity.</p>