Google Wear OS 5: Features, release date, and more

It’s officially launch season and that means a newly upgraded Wear OS. The latest platform, Wear OS 5, delivers a handful of efficiency updates and other improvements to fitness tracking and more. Though there are only select smartwatches currently available with the newest version, we’re likely to see future roll-outs in the coming months. Find out everything you need to know.

Wear OS 5 officially hit shelves via Samsung’s latest lineup, the Galaxy Watch 7 and Galaxy Watch Ultra. The devices debuted during the company’s summer Unpacked event on July 10, 2024, and made their way to wrists starting July 24. Just a few weeks later, on August 13, Google announced the Pixel Watch 3, giving shoppers the option of a Wear OS 5 experience without Samsung’s One UI 6 overlay.

Wear OS 5 continues to elevate the smartwatch experience available on the top Android-compatible smartwatches. This year, improvements focus on battery life savings and a handful of popular tools.

To the delight of many, Wear OS 5 introduces a grid-based app launcher to the Pixel Watch 3 to streamline scrolling for your go-to tools. This hadn’t previously been available on the pure OS, though some manufacturers did already offer it (including Samsung). Now, all Wear OS 5 users can choose between a grid or list-style app launcher.

Wear OS 5 also brings a new and improved version of Watch Face Format to users’ wrists. The update includes the integration of Flavors, goal progress complications, weighted elements complications, weather conditions, and a heart rate data source. All of these help to enhance the watch face options available and enrich customization. Watch Face Format was originally introduced via Wear OS 4, and it is now the recommended way to create watch faces for the platform.

Meanwhile, updates to health services also make their way to watches via Wear OS 5, as well as support for additional data types. Runners, in particular, can benefit from four new metrics: Ground contact time, stride length, vertical oscillation, and vertical ratio (vertical oscillation divided by stride length). Each of these helps athletes polish their running gait for more effective training. This is in addition to a significant improvement in workout tracking battery efficiency. According to Google, running a marathon while tracking on the Wear OS 5 platform consumes up to 20% less power than on Wear OS 4.

The Wear OS 5 roll-out schedule has yet to be announced. Unfortunately, seamless software roll-outs have not been a hallmark of the Wear OS platform. For now, only the latest Galaxy Watches and Google Pixel Watch 3 can boast claims of running the latest tech. It is very likely that we will see the platform make its way to previous generations within these two families first.

Meanwhile, the fate of other devices is up in the air. OnePlus recently launched two new models, the OnePlus Watch 2 and the OnePlus Watch 2R, each running Wear OS 4 out of the box. Likewise, the TicWatch Pro 5 and Pro 5 Enduro remain behind running Wear OS 3.5. We’ll keep this post updated if and when the software makes its way to more devices.