Google Home’s animated camera notifications on Wear OS rolling out in June

Abner Li | May 24 2023 - 2:42 pm PT

Google Home for Wear OS got a big UI redesign last week, with animated camera notification previews also coming, but you’ll have to wait until next month for that.

Announced at I/O, animated Google Home notification previews for Nest camera and doorbell events will require Wear OS System UI version 1.4.

On the Pixel Watch, that component is currently on version 1.1.80.x (and should not be confused with “Wear Core Services,” which is updated as the “Wear OS by Google Smartwatch” app in the Play Store and is also on 1.4.x).

The company told 9to5Google today that Wear OS System UI 1.4 will begin rolling out in June with complete availability by the end of that month.

This has been a highly-requested feature for Wear OS owners. It comes as Google announced support for still images in mid-April.

New lighting controller on Android/iOS

Meanwhile, the updated lighting controller in Google Home for Android and iOS that was shown off at I/O is also still rolling out. This requires version 3.1 of the mobile app and sees the brightness arc replaced by a pill-shaped slider.

Below that are six quick temperature options, while the Light color FAB brings up a new sheet. The first tab shows a bar to control temperature, while you have a circular color picker in the next tab. These two features are already live in the Wear OS app and will be available on the phone/tablet client over the coming weeks.

Google Home 3.1 is still rolling out on Android. It’s available on iOS, but there is a server-side component to the feature’s arrival too.