The latest version of Google’s Wear OS has been launched for the new generation of Fossil watches. It includes several improvements including longer-lasting batteries, better fitness tracking, etc.
Wear OS 3
Fossil rolled out Wear OS 3 to some of its Gen 6 devices last month, and the smartwatches are getting their first software update later this year.
Fossil says the December Wear OS 3 update “primarily includes a number of minor improvements and bug fixes” for the Gen 6. It’s actively rolling out.
There were six major features shared by the new update, including media controls bugs fixes, heart rate LED issues, and hand disappearance when using ambient light.
We have more interesting news.
Various Watch Face Fixes
Things like adding new tutorial sections, including step-by-step instructions for common issues, changing the time-out setting so that the screen turns off after a certain period of time, customizing the color scheme and font style, and making the hands disappear when using Ambient Mode.
Various Button Improvements
Phone call buttons are now answered by pressing them. You can now configure Alexa to answer calls using the buttons on the top row. And if you hold down one of these buttons for longer than usual, Alexa will recognize it as an “Alexa” command.
Smart Battery Modes Updates
We’ve made fixes to various bugs including one where the screen would turn on in extended mode even though it shouldn’t, added new vibration options, improved the way the flashlight works, tweaked the way the screen behaves after charging, and updated our adaptive display setting so that it now matches the rest of the phone.
Wellness Tracking Updates
We’ve made some changes to our wearables service. We’re now using a new algorithm to calculate calories burned during exercise. It means that if you run continuously for an hour, you may see fewer calories than before. If you want to know exactly how many calories you burn, please check out our activity tracker page.
Syncing, Bluetooth, Pairing Improvements
Several new features were added to the synching and Bluetooth area, including improvements to background syncs, fixes for issues where certain phones would block pairing, and an improvement to the Bluetooth name inconsistency feature.
Various Other Updates
Media control bugs, onboarding messages, and help, dialers, call history, recent launches, weather temperature units, security patches/patches, TalkBack accessibility, etc.’s
Fossil says
“there is more in the pipeline”
and provided an update on Google Assistant availability, but there’s otherwise no timeline yet. The company
“continues to aid the Google Assistant team in testing their app on our watches as they work towards a version suitable for our users.”
It also listens to user feedback about “more use of buttons in select apps,” “various UI/UX” and “battery life improvements.”
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