Google equally cares about wearable devices, like smartwatches, as other smartphones and tablets; therefore, at the same time that the Android 15 beta program is running, the company has also started moving forward to develop the WearOS 5 preview, which will be based on Android 14.
In the development, Google has officially stated some new features and improvements that will be in focus. According to the information, the company will be fully focused on improving battery life with workouts like marathons using 20% less power compared to wearing OS 4. There’s a new developer guide available for creating power-efficient WearOS apps, and we also grabbed some new WearOS emulator support for compatibility testing.
Apart from the developer-level changes, the upcoming WearOS 5 will also bring some new changes to the watch face. The company will make some restrictions on the complications for watch faces due to new data source restrictions. Google Play publishing will be limited for new watch faces using these libraries.
With the upcoming WearOS version, some new actions, a new version of Jetpack Composer introduced that will improve the visual and bug fixes, a new feature that will provide the ability to swipe to revival for action, expandable items for the small screen, and a wider range of wearPreview supporting annotations for optimal app performance across devices.
As the smartwatch market is growing, there is a greater variety of watches that will soon hit the market with larger displays, so the company is also prepared for the fact that there are some new guidelines for building responsive UIs to adapt to different display sizes.
