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Google Nest kills smartwatch apps for Wear OS and Apple Watch

Over the past month, the new “Google Nest” replaced Nest.com with the Google Store and gained a new Help Center. The unified brand has now killed its Wear OS and Apple Watch apps for home control right from your wrist.

Released yesterday, version 5.37 of the Nest app coincides with the deprecation of the wearable apps on both platforms. On Wear OS, opening the app will result in a “Nest is no longer supported for Wear OS” prompt, with users advised to uninstall.

The apps allowed you to view notifications, control the temperature of Nest Thermostats, switch to Home/Away modes, and more.

  • Set your Nest thermostat’s target temperature, switch to an Eco Temperature, or switch to a different mode.
  • Manually switch your entire Nest home to Home or Away. For instance, when you leave for vacation, you can quickly set your home to Away, which can automatically turn on your cameras and switch your thermostat to its Eco Temperature.
  • Get all the Nest notifications that you get on your phone, including smoke alerts if you have a Google Nest Protect.

The Nest app listing on the App Store has removed any mention of the client, while only screenshots remain on the Play Store. Support pages, however, are still available on the Google Nest Help Center. On Apple’s platform, this leaves Google Keep as the only available watchOS app.

We’ve reached out to Google for a comment on the removal of the Nest watch apps, and whether they are returning in one form or another. The company would ideally release a Google Home client, but Assistant voice commands might be the recommended replacement.

Update: According to Google, “only a small number of people” used the watch apps, with Nest focussing on the full mobile clients and Assistant moving forward. The latter option is only available for Wear OS users, while Apple Watch owners are out of luck for wrist-based controls.

We took a look at Nest app users on smart watches and found that only a small number of people were using it. Moving forward our team will spend more time focusing on delivering high quality experiences through mobile apps and voice interactions.

You will still get notifications on your watch with Nest app via your mobile device. Wear OS users can control their thermostat with the Google Assistant from any Wear OS device, check out more details here. If you’re using an Apple watch you’ll no longer be able to adjust your thermostat or change Home/Away mode from your watch. However, the actions you were able to take on your watch are all available with the Nest app (available for both Android and iOS), so you’ll still be able to control your devices on the go.

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Avatar for Abner Li Abner Li

Editor-in-chief. Interested in the minutiae of Google and Alphabet. Tips/talk: abner@9to5g.com