At its I/O developer conference today, Google unveiled Wear OS 5, showcasing new features and improvements for the wearable platform. While the final version of the OS isn’t ready yet, the developer preview already boasts enhanced battery life. Google claims Wear OS 5 will consume 20 percent less power than Wear OS 4 during activities like running a marathon.
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Although Wear OS 4 introduced battery life improvements, there was still room for better power management. To aid this, Google has provided developers with a new guide on conserving power and battery, encouraging the creation of more efficient apps.
Google has also introduced new features in the Watch Face Format, enabling developers to create more diverse watch faces that display various kinds of information. This update allows apps to show current weather information, including temperature and rain chances, at a glance. Additionally, the platform now supports new complication types such as “goal progress,” suitable for data with targets that can be exceeded, and “weighted elements,” useful for representing discrete subsets of data.
Wear OS 5 could spur the development of new apps and functionalities in existing ones. Google’s Health Connect API for the platform will allow apps to access user data even when running in the background. It will also enable access to health information from the past 30 days, provided users give explicit permission. Furthermore, Wear OS 5’s Health Services API supports new data types for running metrics, including ground contact time and stride length.
Google did not announce a specific release date for Wear OS 5, but looking at the precedent set by Wear OS 4, which launched with the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 in August 2023, it’s likely that Wear OS 5 could debut with the Samsung Galaxy 7 or the Pixel Watch 3 later this year.
