You can now buy the LG G Watch and Samsung Gear Live, but should you?

The LG G Watch and the Samsung Gear Live are now both available for purchase from the Google Play store, for $249 and $250, respectively. The G Watch will ship by the 4th of July, while the Gear Live is still listed as "coming soon". Android Wear is one of the biggest steps forward for smart watch technology, promising tighter and more seamless integration between wearable devices and your phone.

By Alex Choros

The LG G Watch and the Samsung Gear Live are now both available for purchase from the Google Play store, for $249 and $250, respectively. The G Watch will ship by the 4th of July, while the Gear Live is still listed as "coming soon". Android Wear is one of the biggest steps forward for smart watch technology, promising tighter and more seamless integration between wearable devices and your phone.

So now that you can purchase these watches, should you? Here are a few reasons why this new wave of Android Wear watches are great, as well as a few as to why you should wait.

Three reasons to buy an Android Wear Device

Stop Looking Down At Your Phone
According to Google, people check their Android phones an average of 125 times a day. With Android Gears watches, you can stop looking down at your phone so often. The always on display continually displays the most important piece of information for the moment, as well as any new notifications. This means you can stop pulling your phone out and surreptitiously look down at your watch instead.

You can order a pizza in under 20 seconds
One of the niftiest app demonstrations from the Google I/O keynote was a take away app, where the presenter was able to order and pay for a pizza, from his watch in under 20 seconds. And given the tighter integration with Android-proper, we'll hopefully see many more apps include this functionality.

Customisation
Both the G Watch and the Gear Live give you option to change your watch face, so you can pick from something a bit more traditional, to something a bit more out there. The G Watch also has a changeable wristband, so you can easily up the device's style quotient. These are definitely some of the more smart watches currently available. 

Three reasons not to buy an Android Wear Device

Can only be run on smartphone running Android 4.3 or later
While Android Wear devices are more compatible than most smart watches on the market, you might find yourself left behind if you've got an older Android phone. iPhone users are of course, completely left out.

Do you really want to talk to your watch?
One of the primary ways to interact with Google Wear devices is via voice control. No one in the office here has seen anyone ever talk to Siri or use "OK Google" in public, so we're wondering if this will be possibly be a limiting factor in the uptake of Android Wear devices. And voice recognition also has the potential to fail sometimes; we even saw this live on stage at Google I/O.

More attractive smart watches coming soon
The Motorola Moto 360 is just around the corner, due for a release this winter. It’s been heralded as the best looking smart watch, and given it's more traditional round watch face, it might just be more your style.

Click here for more Google I/O coverage.