New Google Contacts Wear OS Tile rolls out on Pixel Watch

Abner Li | Oct 29 2024 - 3:42 pm PT

With the October Pixel Drop, the Pixel Watch got a pair of new features and the new Google Contacts Wear OS Tile is now available.

The Individual contacts Tile shows a person’s name and profile image at the center. It’s flanked by call and messaging shortcuts, with the former immediately dialing. The latter brings the usual screen for text and voice input, as well as emoji and generic messages (like Yes, Thanks, and On my way).

If there are multiple numbers associated with a contact, you’ll get a picker (with labels). You can place multiple Individual contacts to the left/right of your watch face.

The new Individual contact Tile is available with version 1.64 of Google Contacts for Wear OS. That update rolled out to the on-device Play Store today, and joins the existing Favorite contacts Tile.

The other Pixel Drop addition is the ability to “send and view select emoji reactions to Gmail notifications and in the Gmail app directly from your Pixel Watch.” This is not yet live.

Zooming out, the Pixel Watch 3, 2, or 1 did not see a system update this month. The September Wear OS 5 update for older devices was pulled in response to some users facing issues. Earlier this month, Google said it would resume “later this year.”

The Pixel Watch 3 not seeing an update this month is unexpected. Hopefully, updates will continue next week.