Yesterday Google took the wraps off of Android Pay, it’s brand new mobile payments service that’s going to debut with Android M. Apparently that’s not the only new payment service that Google is cooking up, though.
Hands Free is a new payment method from Google that, just as its name suggests, lets you pay for things without using your hands. As the demo video shows, Hands Free users can simply tell a cashier that they’d like to “pay with Google,” and they’ll be good to go. Google says that when you use Hands Free, your full credit card info will not be shared with stores, and that you’ll get an alert if Google detects any unusual activity with your account. Google will send you a notification on your phone when you successfully make a Hands Free payment.
Hands Free is slated to go into preview in the San Francisco Bay Area later in 2015, and so far McDonald’s and Papa John’s have signed on to participate. There’s no word on when Hands Free might expand to other markets.
Paying for something with your smartwatch or smartphone is pretty nice, and it’s definitely a step up from fumbling with a wallet and fishing out a credit card or counting real cash. Hands Free makes paying for things even easier, though, and it could come in handy for folks that have their hands full or can’t dig out another payment method for another reason. Unfortunately, Google’s not saying much else about Hands Free or how it works right now, but with a preview slated for later in 2015, we may learn more soon.