After five long years, Google has finally done what every other major smartwatch maker has already figured out: How to add widgets.
The improvements have gone a long way in making Wear OS feel smoother and more useful. Today, Google is announcing another new addition: Tiles. Tiles are glanceable widgets that you can swipe between to get information quickly, including the weather, your next calendar appointment, your heart rate, news headlines.
You access Tiles with a left swipe on your Wear OS watchface, which previously took you to Google Fit. Your Fit data is still in that spot, but now you’ll have these other widgets available to you as well.
“With a swipe left, you’ll be greeted by these Tiles and can check your progress towards your fitness goals or start a workout, know where you need to be next, plan ahead with the latest forecast, check your heart rate, follow the latest breaking headlines and set a timer,” Wear OS product manager Frank Deschenes wrote in a blog post.
Google does deserve credit for massively overhauling the Wear OS interface over the past year. It’s done wonders for the platform’s usability as a whole. In addition to improving Google Assistant on the wrist, a few months ago it added swipeable access to the Google Fit screen clearly, a test run for Tiles.
Tiles will roll out to Wear OS over the next month, according to Deschenes. Now, if we only had a flagship Google smartwatch to use them on.
