- Google is rolling out the first Developer Preview of Wear OS 5.
- Wear OS 5 should significantly improve the battery life on smartwatches.
- Google has also released new guidelines for watch face development and app development for larger displays.
Alongside the release of Android 15 Beta 2, Google has finally introduced the first Developer Preview of Wear OS 5. It brings many crucial improvements to the Wear OS platform, so here’s everything new in Wear OS 5 Developer Preview.
Wear OS 5 is based on Android 14, and while it doesn’t bring drastic changes and improvements (probably because it’s still in the Developer Preview phase), it does bring a few very important changes.
Better Battery
The major focus and improvement yet again remains the battery life. Google claims that Wear OS 5 consumes significantly less power than its predecessor and “running a marathon consumes up to 20% power” thanks to the improvements under the hood.
These developments are still in developers’ hands to implement using Google’s new power-saving instructions, but it’s good to see Battery life taking center stage.
Watch Faces Development Changes
Wear OS 5 brings the next iteration of the Watch Face Format Google announced in Wear OS 4. There are changes to existing watch face development using the Watch Face APIs where Wear OS will now restrict complications built with AndroidX or Wearable Support Library which are older means of creating watch faces.
New Guidelines for Larger Displays
New guidelines to build responsive Wear OS app UIs for different sizes of Watches are now available. Developers can take advantage of the same to build better adaptive layouts for larger screens.
Other Changes
- The new Jetpack Compose version 1.3 brings visual improvements to Wear OS.
- Jetpack Tiles Library V1.4 adds support to preview tiles in Android Studio.
- The latest Android Studio also adds a sensor panel to make testing Health Services easier.
What are your thoughts on Wear OS 5? What features or improvements would you like to see in the Beta or Stable versions of the same? Let us know in the comments below.
