Wear OS 5 will bring major upgrades to battery life, fitness, and watch faces

What you want to knowGoogle introduced the Wear OS 5 Developer Preview launch at Google I/O 2024. Wear OS 5 watch faces will get “Flavors” and unique Complications. Android Health will add new operating knowledge and objectives, plus Health Connect upgrades.Wear OS watches will now final 20% longer throughout tracked exercises. To nobody’s shock, Wear OS 5 will arrive “later this year,” Google reported at I/O 2024. Battery life enhancements are “central” to the replace, which you’ll take a look at right this moment by way of the Developer Preview. But Google additionally emphasised well being and health monitoring with this future replace — extra surprising and positively welcome. Google introduced the Wear OS Hybrid Interface and Watch Face Format (WFF) earlier this yr, each of which made Wear OS 4 extra environment friendly. Wear OS 5 piggybacks on these updates, bettering watches’ effectivity and including extra thrilling watch face methods. On the battery entrance, Android builders Kseniia Shumelchyk and Garan Jenkin defined in a weblog put up how “running a marathon consumes up to 20% less power on Wear OS 5 than on Wear OS 4” with default settings.(Image credit score: Google)That’s merely one instance; all exercises that pattern coronary heart price and GPS ought to run extra effectively. However, Android Health upgrades are a good portion of Wear OS 5’s updates. For starters, the brand new OS will add 4 superior operating type measurements: Ground Contact Time, Stride Length, Vertical Oscillation, and Vertical Ratio. In addition, Wear OS 5 will help “debounced goals” for health exercises. What does this imply? Let’s say you begin a exercise the place you could keep inside a sure coronary heart price vary or run sooner than 10:00/mile tempo. In Wear OS 4, the app will constantly spam your wrist with alerts the second you fall out of vary. With Wear OS 5, devs can program a brief delay, stopping false positives and making alerts much less obnoxious. Guided exercises and wrist-based operating dynamics are frequent options on devoted health watches, so this addition to Wear OS 5 ought to make units just like the Pixel Watch 3 extra aggressive. The new Wear OS 5 Health Services panel (Image credit score: Google)On the Wear OS developer finish, Android Studio Koala will “make it easier to test the use of Health Services.” Devs will “simulate events” like lack of coronary heart price knowledge or an auto-pause mechanic, so Wear OS health apps grow to be much less more likely to set off surprising bugs. Get the most recent information from Android Central, your trusted companion on the planet of AndroidHealth Connect — the Google Fit alternative that hyperlinks Third-party health apps collectively — will get one necessary improve. In Wear OS 4, Third-party apps will solely share as much as a month of health knowledge, and solely once they’re open and energetic. With Wear OS 5, Health Connect and health apps will sync within the background and share your entire historic knowledge, as long as you present permission first. Upcoming Wear OS 5 watch faces (Image credit score: Google)For on a regular basis Wear OS 5 customers, you may most recognize the adjustments to the Watch Face Format. Developers can add “Flavors” to look at faces, so customers can select between completely different colours, fonts, issues, and different configurations in a single menu.(Image credit score: Google)Two new WFF issues for Wear OS 5 are “Goal progress” and “Weighted elements.” You’ll be capable to examine your share in the direction of a health goal like step rely or see particular coloured parts that add as much as 100% (like a pie chart). (Image credit score: Google)Adding a climate widget to WFF was a “common request,” Google stories, and Wear OS 5 will make that occur. You’ll be capable to examine present situations, high and low temps, UV index, probability of rain, and different knowledge, set both by hour or by day. Google stories that 30% of Google Play watch faces use WFF, and it is clear that they need to push extra devs into this format. New Wear OS 5 issues might not work with previous codecs, and Google Play will limit new watch faces to WFF beginning in “early 2025,” though devs can proceed to replace older codecs. Lastly, Google says that there is a “wider variety of round screen sizes and resolutions” on Wear OS watches right this moment, which implies devs want “responsive UIs for different watch display sizes.” Devs are receiving new testing instruments to guage how their apps will look on completely different units, so they need to grow to be higher formatted whatever the show measurement you favor. You can try the Wear OS 5 Developer Preview at that hyperlink. A step in the appropriate route (with one fear)Google says that Wear OS customers grew by 40% in 2023; evidently, the platform has grow to be extra well-liked than ever. It’s necessary that Wear OS 5 construct on that momentum, and right this moment’s bulletins have been (largely) encouraging. Wear OS 5 ought to make Android watches extra long-lived in day by day use, widening the hole between them and Apple Watches. That’s nice, in principle. My concern is how Wear OS 5 consumes “20% less power” throughout a marathon. I believe Google may depend on the hybrid interface, having watches’ energy-efficient co-processors pattern your well being knowledge to avoid wasting on battery. That’s how the OnePlus Watch 2 dealt with issues, and it led to inaccurate exercise knowledge due to its gradual, RTOS-running coprocessor. This is absolutely speculative, and maybe a Pixel Watch 3 absolutely operating on Wear OS 5 would not have the identical points. But I’m trying ahead to testing the OS myself to see whether or not its coronary heart price and GPS knowledge can keep correct whereas drawing much less energy. Activity knowledge on the OnePlus Watch 2 (Image credit score: Apoorva Bhardwaj / Android Central)I initially hoped that Google would announce a common Wear OS health app like Fitbit at I/O 2024. While this by no means occurred, the Wear OS 5 replace is placing extra energy within the arms of builders to make Wear OS watches extra viable for health actions than they’re proper now. We did not get main health options, however we will anticipate the Galaxy Watch 7 and Pixel Watch 3 bulletins to capitalize on this health momentum later this yr. For occasion, the One UI Watch 6 replace will in all probability embody the “My Vitality score” metric that’ll mirror Fitbit’s Daily Readiness Score. On the watch face entrance, the brand new WFF could be very power environment friendly however lacks a lot of the creativity and performance of older watch faces, which is why many flip to Facer regardless of the battery life hit. Wear OS 5 will hopefully put WFF heading in the right direction in the direction of being extra extensively adopted. Overall, I’m happy that Google is not twiddling its thumbs with Wear OS. This seems to be a major replace later in 2024. I solely want that Google had spent a bit time displaying off Wear OS options on stage throughout the I/O 2024 keynote as a substitute of relegating the information to weblog posts.