Nearly every Google product and service has been mentioned in some capacity at Google I/O. We’ve seen new features for Android P, Google Assistant, Android Auto, ARCore, Android TV and more. Wear OS has not been excluded from the news. Today during the “What’s new in Wear OS” event, Google has announced that the platform is adding support for Actions on Google and is getting an enhanced battery saver mode.
Google has been talking about Actions on Wear OS before Google I/O, but now Google Assistant on the smartwatch platform supports the program. All existing Actions will work on your smartwatch. Developers can take advantage of the APIs to include Actions that make sense for smartwatches.
During the talk, Google also stressed the importance of battery life on smartwatches. Currently, most Wear OS smartwatches need to be charged every night along with your phone. The second Android P Developer Preview for Wear OS has a new enhanced battery saver mode which should save some extra juice. When enabled, this mode shows a power-efficient watch face and disables services that eat up battery. Essentially, this mode takes the “smart” out of “smartwatch” to save battery. To exit this mod, a long-press of the hardware key will switch back to regular operation.
Google has also updated a few changes made in the first developer preview. They’re rolling back the change that caused the smartwatch to not connect to WiFi when Bluetooth was disconnected. The limited background activity was affecting activity apps that monitor user motion throughout the day. To remedy this, Google is suggesting that developers use foreground services to anchor alarms and jobs.
A lot of people say Wear OS is dead, but Google doesn’t seem to be giving up. Do you think these Android P features will help? If you own a Huawei Watch 2 or Huawei Watch 2 Classic, then try out the preview build and let us know your thoughts below.
Source: Android Developers