Weeks of testing the Pixel Watch 4 early have given me plenty of time to enjoy Wear OS 6, with more useful Tiles, better color theming, smoother animations, and new watch faces. And since Google wasted no time launching the new OS on the Pixel Watch 2 and 3, you can try these perks out for yourself.
Assuming we don’t see any post-launch bugs or rollbacks like with Wear OS 5 and 5.1, then I’ll only have one suggestion to improve Wear OS 6 — and one lingering concern about Google’s long-term update plans.
But first, the positives.
Buttery smooth animations
Scrolling on Wear OS 6 is beautifully smooth. I love the effect of notifications or app drawer icons emerging outward or shrinking away to nothing. The effect is magnified with the Watch 4’s domed display, but looks just as dynamic on my flatter Pixel Watch 3 display.
Animations like the Edge button emerging from the display edge don’t just look cool; there’s also a functional benefit to ending a menu with the most logical action, like switching the app drawer to List View if you couldn’t find something, or clearing all notifications once you’ve scrolled through them all.
The new Tiles, too, use Edge buttons for opening full apps if the shortcuts or center info don’t do what you need. And they’re more useful than before because they fit more information.
Plus, the Wear OS 6 update adds subtle improvements that seem vital and obvious in retrospect, like Dialog pop-ups with ✔️ and ✖️ buttons to accept or reject an option, or a Scrollbar showing how much scrollable content is remaining.
People may focus on how much smoother and prettier Wear OS 6 is, but it’s also more functional than before, closer to the usability you’d expect on a phone.
Wear OS comes alive
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Wear OS 6 also adds color theming pulled from first-party watch faces or third-party watch face support via the Watch Face Push API. The best custom watch face apps don’t support the Watch 4 yet, but should very soon. I’ve already tricked out my Watch 3 with some WFF-compliant Halloween cheer.
Google’s first-party watch face selection is more limited than Samsung’s, and the new Pixel Watch 4 faces haven’t come to the older models yet, so I’d say Pixel Watch owners benefit from the return of third-party faces even more than Galaxy Watch fans.
Wear OS 6 will pull up to three colors from your watch face and insert them into the menu UI, notifications, and Tiles. It’s a subtle thing, but I absolutely love that an impromptu face swap changes the rest of the watch to match my current mood.
It’s too bad the theming tool doesn’t pull from custom faces. A Facer rep told me earlier this year that they’re hoping Google allows this at some point, among other WFF upgrades like 3D faces. But we’ll have to wait until Wear OS 7 or later.
Google’s new Tiles are great in a vacuum
Old Wear OS Tiles were too boring and generic. They usually highlighted one option or information field, with limited usability and no Edge button to push things along. They mostly looked the same, and swiping through every Tile to find what you needed was a chore.
Wear OS 6’s three-slot Tile layout fits in more information, but it’s also less uniform than before. Apps like Gmail or Calendar have two full-width slots to show more text, while Maps and Contacts prioritize having five button options. It’s easier to differentiate between them at a glance, and they’ve become more useful.
Here’s my problem: I think that the Galaxy Watch 8’s One UI 8 Watch Tiles are even better! Called “multi-info tiles,” they let you scroll down through multiple widgets in one menu and customize how much space each widget takes up. While the Pixel Watch 4 has whole, separate Tiles for heart rate and steps, you could easily fit that info and a few other health stats in one quick-scrollable Samsung Tile.
Samsung phones also let you stack widgets that show more information in one slot; maybe One UI is just better equipped to create a Tile like this than the stock Pixel OS.
Even if Google doesn’t copy Samsung completely, I wouldn’t mind if it unleashed Tiles in Wear OS 7 to allow scrolling to fit more information. Imagine if you could use the crown to wheel through more new emails, Keep tasks, recent podcasts, etc., than just two; maybe five or ten could be the limit!
For now, even though I prefer the Pixel Watch 4 over my Galaxy Watch 8 Classic in several ways, Samsung does have the edge in compactly sharing information.
One lingering Wear OS 6 question
Wear OS 6 came to the Pixel Watch 3 and Pixel Watch 2 with the October update, but not the Pixel Watch 1. I asked my Google rep if the Watch 1 will receive it eventually, and they had “nothing to share at this time.”
Google and Samsung promise three and four years of software updates, respectively, but never specified whether that means three or four version updates. Samsung did eventually confirm that the Galaxy Watch 4, which started with Wear OS 3 and received 3.5, 4, and 5, will receive Wear OS 6 as its last update.
We have reason to hope that Google will give the Pixel Watch 1 its third and final version update at some point. But if they don’t, then it’ll give Samsung watches the edge for software longevity, since they’ll be receiving double the version updates.
AI on your wrist
The new Pixel Watch 4 pairs Wear OS 6 with a new Snapdragon chip that’s more efficient and supports new AI tricks like Gemini Raise to Talk. You also get a larger, brighter display, accurate dual-band GPS, full charge in under an hour, and stronger battery life.
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