A feature spotted on the Google Pixel Watch application will eliminate a configuration step that was previously inevitable on connected watches. The addition should extend to other Wear OS devices, not just Pixel Watches.
Still a curiosity around ten years ago, connected watches are now part of the daily lives of many people. Between the Apple Watch and the numerous competitors running under Wear OS from Google, there is plenty of choice. But if Android for mobile is now a well-established and mature system, the same cannot be said of its version for smartwatches. Wear OS is now in its 4th version and it is still missing several basic features that would make it more pleasant to use.
Google is working on this by, for example, making it easier to synchronize watches with several phones, or by adding useful features to specific applications. It’s already better, but it’s not there yet. Some details still remain to be resolved, notably on somewhat painful points which should no longer exist. Fortunately, the Mountain View company is aware of this and will delete one permanently.
This new function will make configuring a watch under Wear OS faster
You are used to grant or not a whole bunch of permissions to applications on your smartphones. Access to your location, microphone, call log, storage… You configure all of this the first time you open the app and then you don’t think about it anymore. Until you install the same on your smartwatch. As the configured permissions are not retrieved, you have to start from scratch and grant/refuse them one by one again, which can be annoying in use. A new option will change that.
The teams from the Telegram Google News channel spotted it in version 2.3.0 of theGoogle Pixel Watch app. Once activated, it brings up a menu called Device Detailswhich itself contains the option to Synchronizing permissions from the phone. No need to configure them twice. Although the new function is visible in the app dedicated to Pixel Watch, the relevant menu is present on Android, which suggests that other watches running Wear OS will be able to benefit from it.