Google has released the first Android P based developer preview of Wear OS today, giving developers a chance to take a sneak peak and giving consumers a preview of what to expect in the next major release for the platform. The developer preview is aimed squarely at developers and only works on the Huawei Watch 2 Bluetooth or Huawei Watch 2 Classic Bluetooth. Installing the preview is a manual flashing process and Google has made it clear, this is not ready for consumers to test out.
As for as new features are concerned, there are some exciting ones to look forward to in this build. A dark theme will now be available and will be set as the default. This should improve glanceability of notifications and other information on watches.
There are also a lot of battery saving features coming in this update to Wear OS. Off-body detection will be available which will turn off the radios of the watch when it is not physically on your body. Also, background activities will be limited by default and if you are connected to Bluetooth to your phone on your watch, the WiFi antenna will be turned off. All of this is aimed at stretching out the battery life on Wear watches and should make a big different overall.
You can read all the details about the developer preview here and Google has indicated this is the first of several DPs before it is released to the general public later this year.
