Multiple owners of the 1st generation of the Moto 360 are starting to see Android Marshmallow show up on their smartwatches today and I am one of them. The update, which has been rolling out to other smartwatches recently, seems to have had the trigger pulled for one of the first and popular Android Wear devices with users reporting to Phandroid and Reddit that they are seeing the update.
On my Moto 360 I was notified that the update was available and downloaded it to my device this morning via an OTA update. The update took about 10 minutes and I did not have to reset my Moto 360 afterwards. So far there has been nothing official from Motorola on the release or from Google for that matter. Like for Android phones and tablets, the update for Android Wear brings some of the benefits of Marshmallow to the wearable including Doze and improved screen dimming. While the original 360 doesn’t have the hardware to take full advantage of everything in the
Moto 360
Marshmallow update (it doesn’t have a speaker for example), there are still plenty of good reasons to get the update.
In order to install the update your watch will need to have at least 80% battery power. If you are under that amount it will not allow the update to be downloaded and you’ll have to wait until you get recharged.
At first glance there are some improvements that you will notice immediately. There are some new gestures for you to use, a new Do Not Disturb feature when you pull down the settings shade and some overall performance improvements. I have been using it for a few hours now and it seems to be much smoother in performance than the previous build of Lollipop (although to be fair, it wasn’t that bad prior).
There is no special trick to get the update. It will come to your Moto 360 OTA but again, you have to be at 80% battery life or better to download and install.
