It's not perfect yet, but it's looking like Google finally got their UI right for wearables.
AC
Score
4.5
, Google's smartwatch platform has not had an easy life. It's been blasted and bemoaned for a clunky UI, and its watches — powered by long-outdated chipsets — have fallen further and further and further behind the Apple Watch, , in style, and most starkly . WearOS got a name change last year, but what it needed was an overhaul of how it actually worked.
In August, Google announced that to most current Wear OS watches, and last week, . This new UI promised a simpler, streamlined experience: would be a single swipe away, as would a quicker, better .
Well, Google has delivered on its promise, and the future for Android wearables is looking brighter than ever.
About this review
I have tested and tinkered with the new Wear OS 2.0 update for about 36 hours after receiving it Monday morning on my , which I have been wearing for over three months. I have been a consistent Wear OS user since the original Moto 360, using an original Huawei Watch, LG Watch Style, TicWatch E, and TicWatch Pro over the last 4 years, using it primarily for notifications, quick replies, media controls, grocery lists, and TicHealth's hourly reminders to take a break and some steps.
Swipe for sanity
Wear OS 2.0's condensed UI brings efficiency and simplicity
Wear OS's previous incarnations were a bit of a hot mess. If you swiped left or right on the watch face, you'd swap to another watch face. Each notification was its own card and its own slide on a Rolodex of a feed. The app drawer was a dense carousel, and Google Assistant could only be summoned by pressing and holding the power button. Now, the main Wear OS UI has been simplified into a cross of sorts:
- Center: watch face — To swap or customize the watch face, long-press the face.
- Top: Quick Settings — Toggles: Airplane mode, Battery saver, Theater mode, Do Not Disturb, Play/Pause music. Shortcuts: Settings menu, Google Pay tap-and-pay, Music controls
- Right: Fitness app — For most watches, this will be the , showing your progress on Move Minutes and Heart Points and a shortcut for starting a new Workout.
- Bottom: Condensed notification feed — No more wasted space! Tap a notification to expand them in-line and reveal any actions and quick reply suggestions.
- Left: Google Assistant — Voice prompt icon at the top of a Google Now-like feed, showing search and command suggestions based on location, weather, time, and upcoming trips or deliveries.
It's hard for me to say which one of these improvements is the most useful, because they're all much better than they were — well, except for TicHealth's paltry replacement of Google Fit, but that's an anomaly most users won't have to deal with. It's also one I hope Mobvoi changes quickly. The condensed notification feed is much easier to sift through, and the new Assistant feed makes it much quicker to initiate searches or check on upcoming items like flights and reservations.
Everything is quicker to get to and easier to use.
Quick Settings has more than doubled in usefulness, and the addition of Google Pay and music is especially gratifying. Now, playback controls won't get buried under a mountain of new messages — or accidentally cleared away with them — and tap-and-pay can be easily summoned without leaving your current app or activity. The sound toggle is a welcome addition, as well, sitting somewhere between Do Not Disturb and Theater mode on the scale of interruption control.