Google launches Wear OS 7 with Live Updates and a battery life boost

Google’s Wear OS 7 update is starting to roll out today for the Pixel Watch 2, 3, and 4 , adding a new Live Updates feature that tracks live events from your Android smart watch. Live Updates will now sync with Wear OS devices, so updates like sports scores or an ongoing meal delivery will show up on both your watch and your phone.

Wear OS 7 will also introduce some new Gemini Intelligence features, but Google says these aren’t launching until “later this year.” They’ll include Create My Widget, which you can use to generate custom Wear OS widgets using natural language prompts. Google says Gemini will also be able to handle multi-step app automation in Wear OS 7, such as making a reservation or placing a restaurant order from your watch. Wear OS 7 will update Gemini with Google’s new “neural expressive” design and add support for Personal Intelligence, which pulls data from connected Google apps to inform suggestions from Gemini.

Controlling media from your watch is also getting easier with a new output switcher, where you can move audio output from one connected device to another, like headphones or a Nest speaker. Google says smart glasses like the ones we saw at I/O last month will be able to connect to Wear OS 7 so you can preview photos taken with the glasses on your watch.

Third-party app developers can also now add Wear OS Widgets that should be easier for them to develop and more dynamic than the custom Tiles that launched in 2019. For devices that don’t get the update, Google says apps can continue to support Tiles too, or the widgets will be displayed as a full-screen tile on Wear OS 4, 5, and 6.

Lastly but not least, Google’s Emergency Sharing feature can also now automatically call your selected list of emergency contacts in addition to emergency services if your Pixel Watch detects a fall, loss of pulse, or a car crash.