latest
Mobvoi TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS review: An update away from excellence
The latest TicWatch justifies its existence, and Wear OS 3 might make it even better
Read update
Mobvoi has more competition in Wear OS this year, but it’s not changing its approach just yet. Incremental changes are the name of the game with the launch of the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS, though the continued lack of Wear OS 3.0 is a notable pain point. While Mobvoi's newest smartwatch is expected to receive an update to Wear OS 3.0 sometime in 2022, this certainly puts Mobvoi at a disadvantage compared to Samsung and its Galaxy Watch 4. Still, Mobvoi is a known name in the Wear arena for a reason, and that reason is that it continually releases capable smartwatches year after year at satisfactory price points.
A lot of newfangled stuff you can do with a smartphone seems like it has a limited utility. But I have to admit, paying for your take-out with your watch — never reaching into a pocket or purse for a wallet, or even a phone — is just dang cool. Starting today you can do it with Google Pay in ten new countries, mostly in Europe.
Fossil teases Gen 6 Wear OS watches for early next week
"First access" is coming monday — that might be a release, a pre-order, or something else
The excitement surrounding Fossil's already-leaked Gen 6 watch lineup may have waned a bit now that we know it won't get Wear OS 3 until the middle of next year, but we do have one new fact to share that could bring a little bit of hype back into the equation. You may not have long to wait for it to land.
Fossil's Gen 6 smartwatch leaks, for those who prefer Wear OS
It may be coming as soon as next month
Read update
The Galaxy Watch4 turned a lot of heads recently, both for being a pretty darn good watch in its own right and the first model that uses the third-gen version of Wear OS, infused with Samsung's Tizen software. But early reviews indicate that the watch is, well, very Samsung: you'll have to dig deep to find the Wear foundations. A new leak from Fossil might catch the eye of anyone excited for a new generation of Wear OS hardware — admittedly, expected to run older software.
Samsung unveils One UI Watch interface, but leaves us hanging for new Wear hardware
Those leaked watches will probably show up in an Unpacked event this summer
At a digital Mobile World Congress event today, Samsung is showing off its designs for a new generation of Galaxy wearables. But it's sticking to the One UI software side of things, declining to debut new wearable hardware, or even talk very much about that new combined Wear OS platform that it will be running on. It's a bit of a downer after those recent leaks of a next-gen Galaxy Watch 4 from last week.
How do you feel about Google's big Wear OS (and Tizen and Fitbit) news today?
Google's announcement at I/O will shape the future of Android wearables
Wear OS isn't great. That's an opinion that seems to be fairly universal (with the usual exceptions), especially when you start comparing Android-powered wearables to those from Samsung, Fitbit, and of course, Apple. Google knows this, and they're working on it. Never has that been more apparent than at today's Google I/O developer conference keynote.
Fitbit devices will run Wear OS in the future
Signature Fitbit features will be available on existing Wear devices soon
Ever since Google bought Fitbit in 2019, we've been waiting to see what kind of effect that combination would have on both Fitbit's fitness-focused wearables and Google's own Wear OS. Today we know. At Google I/O, a Fitbit representative said it flat out: future Fitbit wearable devices will be running Wear OS.
'Hey Google' command appears to be working again on some Wear OS watches
Most users say it still hasn't come back
A little while back the signature "hey Google" Assistant commands stopped working on Wear OS watches. Well, that's not completely true: a few months ago it stopped working, and it took that long for enough people to notice that Google said it would do something about it. Based on a few user tests, that appears to be resolved, at least for some devices.
Google Fit adds new Wear OS Tiles, prioritizes step counter, and improves Heart Point recommendations (Update: APK download)
Now there's a reason to keep checking your watch while you're stuck inside
Read update
Just as many people are getting a bit stir crazy from staying indoors, the Google Fit team is delivering some long overdue attention to the Android app and Wear OS. Over the next week or so, several enhancements to the interface are set to roll out, meant to make information more visible while streamlining the interface so users can quickly pull up the most important bits of data.
Read update
Wear OS has gone through quite a few evolutions over the last five years as it adopted apps, watch faces with custom complications, changes to notifications, and so on. The next big change is coming soon as Google prepares to take another step on the path it began with the last major update, and it's going to be called Tiles.
Android Wear, or Wear OS as it's now known, seems to have found renewed momentum lately with fresh efforts in fitness, updates to the interface, and new hardware coming on the horizon. The latest update brings one notable change the improves the interface for managing notifications, but also carries with it the signs of many other changes and additions to come.
Read update
Google is attempting to breathe new life into Wear OS with another redesign. Things are getting shifted around so that the most important stuff is front-and-center, or just a quick swipe away. On paper, it all sounds pretty good.
While you can run apps on Wear OS, the main reason for it to exist is to serve notifications. But for as much as notifications are useful, too many can be counterproductive. If you're finding that one or more of your apps is getting too noisy, but you're not quite ready to shut down notifications altogether, one good solution is to block those notifications from reaching your watch. Soon, you'll be able to access the settings screen to configure blocked apps by using a launcher shortcut.
A few years ago, a French computer science student named Florent Revest undertook a project to keep Android Wear smartwatches from dying of obsolescence. That project is called AsteroidOS, built entirely on GNU/Linux libraries and technologies, and in its current state, it's fairly basic. Even so, for all fans of open source software out there, this is pretty damn great.
Every week, I examine somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred app updates while looking for changes. The most interesting things turn into APK Teardowns or Download posts. Many of the remaining updates are unremarkable, amounting to a few bug fixes, routine updates to libraries, or even just pixel-level adjustments to layouts and images. However, there are usually a few updates that land somewhere in between. I don't want to spam readers with dozens of short posts, but I hate to ignore things that people might want to know about, so I'm going to wrap up the leftovers for a little weekend reading and call it Update Notes.
In late August of last year, Google announced some updates to its Android Wear policy which would affect the requirements for an app to obtain an "Enhanced for Android Wear" badge. Whereas previously, apps could qualify simply by implementing enhanced notifications, Google's planned policy change for January 18th, 2018 imposed some stricter restrictions.
Android Wear 2.0, deep down inside, is based on Nougat 7.0. A bit over a month ago the platform saw news of a coming update to Oreo in the form of a beta program, originally only available for the LG Watch Sport. We presume that beta is now over, because Android Oreo is rolling out to Wear devices starting today.
Google announced last month that one of the plans for Wear 2.0 had been to make the platform easier to update with software upgrades from the Play Store rather than relying so much on sending out a barrage of firmware updates. In the v2.6 update, quite a few improvements and little tweaks have been made to the interface, including new connection indicators, download status notifications, a recent app complication, and more.
A new version of Play Music is available this afternoon and it's making a big leap in versions from 8.0 to 8.5. This update doesn't come with the redesign that had seemed likely after last month's visual refresh to Play Music on Android TV. But cosmetic touchups were in the cards as the adaptive icons for app shortcuts were fixed in this release. Additionally, Play Music lost some megabytes after unbundling its Wear app.
Now that Android 8.0 Oreo is out of beta and making its way onto devices in earnest, the Wear team is taking a turn with its own preliminary firmware update. Starting today, Google's Beta Program page is now distributing an early version of the next release of Android Wear. However, if you were looking forward to a lot of new features, you might be disappointed to hear that this is being referred to as a "technical upgrade to API 26" – mostly an update to the underlying infrastructure. On top of that, only one watch qualifies for betas at this time: The LG Watch Sport.