Category: Wear OS

A new update to the Wear OS by Google app is rolling out in the Play Store today, bringing a handful of improvements to the app and subsequently your Wear OS watch.  The update is version 2.14.0.205078731 for those keeping score at home and it should be available to all Wear users at this point.

The headliner in the update is improvement Google Pay performance.  If you have an NFC watch, you’ve been able to use it to pay for things using Google Pay.  The problem that most users have run into is that it takes too long to open, in some cases up to 15 seconds.  That largely defeats the point as it is faster to get a credit card from your wallet or simply tap your phone to pay.  This update should fix that.

Today is Amazon Prime Day, the biggest sales event for the online retailer each year.  As part of the sale, Huawei has lowered the prices on virtually all of their Android phones and Wear OS by Google smartwatches.  And in some cases, the savings are huge.

·         $300 off the Huawei Mate 10 Pro smartphone – $499

·         $30 off the Huawei Mate SE smartphone – $219

·         $80 off the Huawei Watch 2 Sports – $219

·         $80 off the Huawei Watch 2 Classic  – $289

·         $20 off the Huawei Band 2 – $49

Keep in mind that Prime Day started at 3:00 pm Eastern today, or Noon Pacific for those on the West coast.  Things will sell out very quick – they always do – so if you are wanting to pick up one of these great deals, do it sooner rather than later.

It has taken a bit longer than the company expected but if you have a Mobvoi Ticwatch E or S model, you should have your Wear OS update that brings Android Oreo available.  The company, in a recent post in their forums, indicates that 100% of devices should have the update now available and installed (or ready to install).

Originally the company had indicated that the update would roll out in March of this year but “Due to unexpected circumstances” the updates were delayed.  The company then began rolling out the update early last week with the 100% mark for all devices hit on May 16th.

I can confirm that my Mobvoi Ticwatch E has been updated.

While it has been pretty clear the past couple of weeks the work that Google has put into Google Assistant on phones, that isn’t the only place they have been improving things.  Wear OS by Google has also been getting a lot of updates lately around Assistant and other features which has significantly improved the overall usefulness of Assistant on your wrist.

Just before Google I/O, Wear OS got a big update that, amongst other things, brought support for Actions in Google Assistant.  As part of that, you can now ask Assistant on your watch to give you a game or score update and have the information displayed on your screen in an easy-to-view format as well as an audio update on the game.

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.

For those of you who like to control their music from their Wear OS watch, today is a good day for you.  The Wear OS team, via the product forums, has announced that new features have rolled out to the Wear version of the Google Play Music app that allows for things like Shuffling music and previewing the next track to be played.

The new features impact the Google Play Music app that is installed on Wear OS devices and is rolling out now.  When you get the update (likely you already have you will be able to slide up when music is playing and enable a Shuffle feature on the playlist or album that you are listening to at the time.  Further, you will be able to swipe to see which track is next so you can decide if you want to play it or skip it.