Along with their new smartwatches, Google today detailed Android Wear 2.0, the software that’s powering the LG Watch Sport and Style and will soon hit other watches.
Android Wear 2.0 is a major update to Google’s wearables platform. With it, you can personalize your watch face with information from apps that you choose, letting you quickly glance at info like the weather, your fitness tracking, and more.
Speaking of fitness, Google Fit will let you track your pace, distance, calories burned, and heart rate (on supported devices) when you walk, run, or cycle. Google Fit can also track your reps when you’re weight-lifting as well as when you’re doing push-ups, sit-ups, or squats.
Another big feature of Android Wear 2.0 is the new on-watch Google Play Store. You can use this to browse for and install apps directly on your watch, meaning that you don’t need to pull out your phone and try to figure out if an app will work on your smartwatch.
Google has included new messaging features in Android Wear 2.0 as well. When you receive a message, you can dictate, type, or handwrite your response, or you can even draw an emoji. If you’re in a hurry, you can use Smart Reply, a feature that’ll intelligently suggest responses based on the message you received.
Finally, Android Wear 2.0 includes Google Assistant. You can launch Google’s Assistant by holding down the power button on your watch or by saying “Ok, Google.” From there, you can ask questions about the weather, sports scores, get directions, and more.
Google Assistant on Android Wear 2.0 will launch with support for English and German. It’ll expand to more languages in the coming months.
So when can you get Android Wear 2.0? Google says that an update will begin rolling out to existing smartwatches in the coming weeks. There are the Android Wear watches that’ll receive an update to Android Wear 2.0:
