Google unveiled Wear OS 5 today at its I/O developer conference and gave us a look at the new features and other improvements coming with the platform. The company isn’t quite ready to release the final version of the wearable OS, but its developer preview has already revealed improved battery life. For example, Google said that Wear OS 5 will consume 20 percent less power than Wear OS 4 if the user runs a marathon. Wear OS 4 now improved battery life for smartwatches that support it, but it could still be better at managing device power. Google has also released a new guide for developers on how to save power and battery so they can create more efficient apps.
In addition, Google was launched New features in Watch Face Format, allowing developers to create more types of watch faces that display different types of information. This update enabled the creation of apps that can display current weather information at a glance, including temperature and rain probability. The company is also adding support for new complication types. These include “goal progress”, which corresponds to data where the user is on target but may exceed it, and “weighted elements”, which can be used to represent discrete subsets of the data.
Wear OS 5 can also build new apps and new features into old apps. Google’s Health Connection The API for the platform will allow apps to access user data even while running in the background. It will also give them access to health data from the past 30 days, although users will have to give explicit permission before the apps can use either feature. Finally, Wear OS 5’s Health Services API supports new data types for running, such as ground contact time and stride length.
Google hasn’t announced when Wear OS 5 will be available, but its predecessor, Wear OS 4, Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 In August 2023. Based on the timeline and devices that currently support the platform, Watch OS 5 could launch with the Samsung Galaxy 7 or Pixel Watch 3 later this year.
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