Wear OS

Recently we saw the difference in performance a bump in RAM can make on Wear OS, thanks to the TicWatch Pro 4G. Now, the Movado Connect 2.0 has surfaced at the FCC with even better specs, as well as a more compact size.

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Here’s a strange one. If you turn off auto-brightness on a Wear OS smartwatch, the overall performance of the system seems to improve, in some cases quite dramatically.

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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.

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While there are plenty of valid reasons why Wear OS is not all that great, I think it’s a solid platform overall. My main problem using it is simply that it’s incredibly slow on most hardware. Lately, though, I’ve had one of the best Wear OS experiences I’ve ever had with the new TicWatch Pro 4G from Mobvoi, and I think a lot of that comes down to the fact that it has killer performance.

There are a ton of Wear OS smartwatches on the market today, and some of the best are a part of Mobvoi’s TicWatch lineup. Today, the TicWatch Pro 4G has gone official, and it delivers one of the best packages we’ve seen in a Wear OS device in quite some time for a very affordable price. Here’s what you need to know.

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Mobvoi last week teased that a new TicWatch, which previously leaked with LTE capabilities, is coming on Wednesday, July 10. Just a day before that announcement, Verizon’s Open Development Showcase site has leaked the TicWatch Pro 4G/LTE.

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One of the biggest problems that Google’s Wear OS faces is the hardware it’s running on. Essentially since its debut in 2014, almost every smartwatch has run on old hardware. Even the Snapdragon Wear 3100 released just last year reused the same core design from a 2013 chip. Now, though, Qualcomm appears to be preparing a new Snapdragon Wear chip, possibly called the “429” for future Wear OS hardware.

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Wear OS has a sore lack of watches with LTE, but it seems that could be changing very soon. A teaser page on Mobvoi’s website gives an early peek at the next TicWatch which we’re expecting to come with LTE connectivity.

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The Fossil Group is responsible for the vast number of Wear OS devices, especially those from fashion brands. Sharing the same underlying hardware across different case designs, the next generation Fossil Wear OS watches have popped up at the FCC today.

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New watches running Wear OS have been far and few between in recent months. Mobvoi, known for affordable smartwatches running the Google OS, appears to be working on a follow-up to the TicWatch Pro that notably features LTE in the U.S.

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“Tiles” has been Google’s latest attempt to make Wear OS more useful, and if it ever hits all users it looks like it definitely will be. Today, the company has started rolling out a new manager for Tiles in the Wear OS app on your smartphone.

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Wear OS is far from a popular platform, but I still use it every single day. However, there’s one thing I’ve noticed over the past several months – updates on Wear OS are a fragmented disaster.

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The smartwatch market in 2019 is mainly the Apple Watch, with everyone else competing for scraps. While Apple’s popular wearable grew in market share year-over-year, the biggest player in Wear OS saw a loss. According to a new report, Fossil Group’s smartwatch efforts saw them lose share in the market.

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Just yesterday, Google announced its latest Wear OS feature in Tiles, and it’s already starting to roll out to some users on various watch models. Here’s what you need to know.

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Ahead of I/O 2019 next week, Google is announcing new features that likely won’t be getting any stage time during the main keynote. As we noted last month in an APK Insight, Wear OS is adding bite-sized pieces of information called Tiles.

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Wear OS apps are pretty rough for the most part. Personally, I rarely use any of them at all. In recent weeks, though, the Google Maps app for Wear OS has been broken for many users, and that’s understandably frustrating.

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The last major system-level update to Wear OS introduced Android 9 Pie, with more watches seeing the update since the start of 2019. Brands are still releasing devices, but the Snapdragon Wear 3100 has yet to see wide adoption. An update to the Wear OS companion today reveals that future devices might feature eSIM.

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