Wear OS has received another small update, with some new health focussed tiles.
The smartwatch OS that powers TicWatch and Fossil smartwatches (and others brands) now has dedicated tiles for Workouts, Weather and Breathe. These join the Fit tiles for goals, heart rate and Heart Points that were launched earlier this year.
The Workouts tile shows recent data and can show live readouts from a session.
The Breathe tile enables you to start the guided breathwork sessions that already existed on Wear OS, and will show the before and after heart rate.
And the new Weather tile shows high/low temperature, the forecast and some bold iconography that looks pretty smart. However, you don’t get the bi-hourly forecast for the day, so you won’t know if it’s brightening up later.
These new additions join a broader Wear OS update that focuses on speed and performance. However, we haven’t seen the large overhaul of the operating system we’ve long been calling for.
However, the pedestrian speed of advancements feels like Google is waiting for the Fitbit acquisition to really start supercharging its OS.
As we wrote back in October, Google and Fitbit are both relying on this deal. Fitbit has stalled a little in terms of Fitbit OS development, while it steams on ahead with its new sensor data, stress, ECG and COVID-19 research.
Likewise Google is starting to make headway with battery performance and the OS. Add in Fitbit’s tracking and things start to look a lot more positive.
But that is pending US government approval – and it’s also under scrutiny in the EU too, despite Google assurances Fitbit data won’t be used for advertising or commercial purposes.
How we test
James is the co-founder of Wareable, and he has been a technology journalist for 15 years.
He started his career at Future Publishing, James became the features editor of T3 Magazine and T3.com and was a regular contributor to TechRadar – before leaving Future Publishing to found Wareable in 2014.
James has been at the helm of Wareable since 2014 and has become one of the leading experts in wearable technologies globally. He has reviewed, tested, and covered pretty much every wearable on the market, and is passionate about the evolving industry, and wearables helping people achieve healthier and happier lives.