You may soon be able to use your NFC-enabled Android Wear smartwatch to pay for goods and services by touching it on various contactless terminals, reveals Android Police.
The feature, which was discovered by the popular Android blog during a teardown of the latest Google Play Services APK, is expected to launch with Android Wear 2.0 next year.
At present, information on the plaftorm is a little sparse. All we know for certain is that strings pertaining to tap-to-pay functionality were found in the Play Services application package, which has led many to believe that it’s currently being tested.
It’s hardly a surprise that Google is working on a payment platform for its wearable operating system, though. Both Apple and Samsung have already launched rival services, and they’re proving to be an attractive feature for consumers.
We’re not entirely sure why Google has waited until now to ramp up development of the service as it’s rumored to have started the creative process it back in 2014 when the first Android Wear smartwatch with an NFC chip hit the market.
Earlier this year, some “tapandpay” prefixes were also spotted in a build of Play Services, which added some truth to the speculation that the firm is working on the feature, but this latest revelation is the most solid evidence we’ve seen to date.
Hopefully we don’t have to wait too much longer to find out more.
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