Tag Archives: Wearable computers

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You Can Finally Listen to YouTube Music on Wear OS

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YouTube Music for Wear OS is finally getting a tile!
Photo: Florence Ion / Gizmodo

Good news for YouTube Music listeners! A compatible app for Wear OS is finally available so that you can take your playlists with you on the go.

Google announced in a user community post that YouTube Music is finally a standalone app. This week, the company will start rolling out the ability to stream YouTube Music over LTE and wifi. You’ll no longer need to carry your phone in your back pocket to access your YouTube Music playlists or pre-download the music you want to listen to out on the trail. All you’ll need is an internet connection on the watch itself.

This standalone version of YouTube Music is the first smartwatch app for the streaming service after it brutally replaced Google Play Music in late 2020. Samsung had pre-announced this ability earlier this year for its flagship smartwatch, the Galaxy Watch 4, which is one of our favorite Android-based watches at the moment.

If you’re a YouTube Music Premium subscriber, you’ll have access to all of the service’s streaming library, plus premade playlists. You won’t have to endure ads either, and the app comes with a Smart Downloads feature to ensure the newest music is synced to your watch any time it’s back on WiFi. YouTube Music will also start aggregating new playlists based on your history as you keep listening.

If you’re already on a Wear OS smartwatch, you’ll have access to the new YouTube Music tile. The tile is like a quick-launch remote for any recently played playlists. It’ll also allow you to browse the main page of the YouTube Music app from your watch.

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Tiles work like widgets, wherein you can place it in its own screen space of sorts to swipe over to it when you’re ready to listen. Music apps like Spotify offer a similar tile that stays embedded in the Wear OS interface, so you can head over and start the music regardless if you have headphones on.

For more information, Google has updated its support page with instructions on the new YouTube Music app for Wear OS. The update should roll out for YouTube Music users this week.

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Google Pixel Watch Release Date Rumored to Be May 26

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Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4 was the first Wear OS 3 smartwatch.
Photo: Victoria Song/Gizmodo

Rumors surrounding Google’s forthcoming Pixel smartwatch have been circulating for more than a year, and while we know some details about the product, a specific release date hasn’t even been speculated.

Today, that changed. Leaker Jon Prosser posted on Twitter that Google is planning on launching the Pixel Watch on May 26, a date that aligns with the company’s I/O developer conference.

Prosser had previously said that Google might reveal the watch alongside the Pixel 6 in October but warned that the date was a moving target. He later corrected the timeline, claiming the watch had been delayed to Q1 2022. Now the device looks likely to arrive in Q2.

While Google hasn’t confirmed the release date—no less the existence of a Pixel Watch—just yet, this latest leak should be encouraging Android users waiting for a proper Apple Watch rival because, as Prosser points out, this is the “first we’ve seen a set date on the device behind the scenes.” Moreover, Google’s I/O 2022 conference, which took place from May 18 to 20 last year, would be a logical launchpad considering it’s where Google announced Wear OS 3, the most meaningful update to its watch OS in years.

We’ve been hearing about a Google-made smartwatch for a long time now, and while Google has squashed those rumors in years past, now might finally be the time. A December report claimed the codename for the device is “Rohan” and that it’ll have a round face (like basically every other Android smartwatch). It is said to offer basic fitness-tracking, like step counts and heart rating monitoring, along with other features taken from Google-owned Fitbit.

There had been plenty of speculation about how Google would approach smartwatches after finalizing its acquisition of Fitbit last year. It was unclear whether the company would release a Pixel-branded device or go the Nest route and put its smartwatch division under the Fitbit brand. Anything is possible, but leaks and rumors suggest the wearable will be a companion device to Google’s smartphones.

If past leaks are accurate, then we’ve already seen the device. Late last year, Prosser posted on his YouTube channel what he claims are official promotional photos. They show a watch similar to the one featured in renders from April—it has a circular design and a practically bezel-free watch face that waterfalls around the edges.

As for specs, the rumored wearable could be powered by a Samsung Exynos chip and support Google Assistant, based on a report from 9to5Google that claims to have found a “PIXEL_EXPERIENCE_WATCH” feature tag within a Google app. It might have been assumed that Google would turn to Qualcomm, but remember, Google partnered with Samsung to help it fix its tragically failing smartwatch OS. We wouldn’t be surprised if this partnership also involved using the other’s hardware.

We don’t know how much the watch will cost, but a recent Business Insider report, corroborated by The Verge, claims it will be more expensive than a Fitbit and priced to compete against the Apple Watch. And like the Apple Watch, the Pixel Watch (if it’s named that) will need to be charged daily. In any case, most of what we think we “know” about the Pixel Watch is based on speculation and rumor, so this Android user is keeping his excitement in check.

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Google’s Pixel Watch Might Get an Ultra-Fast Google Assistant

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Photo: Victoria Song/Gizmodo

Google’s Pixel smartwatch is one of the most anticipated devices on the horizon despite not being a confirmed product, and a new report makes us even more eager to see what’s coming.

The rumored Pixel Watch will apparently be powered by a Samsung Exynos chip and support Google Assistant, according to a report from 9to5Google that claims to have found a “PIXEL_EXPERIENCE_WATCH” feature tag within a Google app.

As the site notes, previous Pixel phones contained similar feature tags that told apps when to provide Pixel-exclusive features. If the forthcoming smartwatch does indeed have its own feature tag, it would suggest that it will receive features you can’t find on other watches.

Hold on, though, because it only gets better from here. The folks at 9to5Google also found references to “Rohan,” the codename linked to the Pixel Watch, and tied them to the next-generation Assistant, or the most recent version of the Google Assistant that debuted in the Pixel 4. The advantage of using the next-gen assistant is that speech can be processed directly on your device in real time, allowing you to quickly open apps, translate speech into text, or perform various functions offline.

As it stands, the latest version of Google’s watch OS, Wear OS 3, is still missing an assistant altogether (the poor Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 relies on Bixby).

Between finding a feature tag containing “PIXEL” and spotting what has been, to this point, a Pixel-exclusive feature, 9to5Google seems pretty convinced that Google’s next watch will indeed be called the Pixel Watch (as has been rumored). This comes just a few weeks after a Business Insider report said it was “unclear” what brand Google would use if it even decides to release the watch.

And while there remains a sliver of doubt as to whether this thing will ever arrive, we have a pretty good idea of how it’ll look if it does. Again, 9to5Google did some digging, but this time, it looked through the Wear OS 3 emulator and found a watch face that seems to give us a glimpse at the Pixel Watch’s design.

One graphic it found shows a round watch face with a prominent crown. On the display is a curved light bar in Google colors (red, yellow, green, blue). While we don’t know for sure, this very much looks like the sort of icon that would appear when you summon the Google Assistant.

It’s worth pointing out that the image found in the emulator looks like the generic watch icon Google used in its Wear OS 3 announcement, and the addition of a pusher button deviates from the leaks we’ve seen thus far.

If those weren’t enough juicy Pixel Watch leaks, we get one more courtesy of 9to5Google, which claims to have “seen evidence suggesting” the Pixel Watch will be powered by a Samsung Exynos processor instead of Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon Wear 4100 Plus chip. Google and Samsung worked together on Wear OS 3 so it’d make sense for them to share hardware.

It’s possible Google’s upcoming watch will be powered by the same Samsung Exynos W920 found in the Galaxy Watch 4, but like everything else in this latest rumor batch, we can’t say for sure until Google confirms this thing is real.

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Samsung’s Smartwatch Chip Could Be a Game-Changer for Wear OS

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Photo: Victoria Song/Gizmodo

Good news for those of you who are eagerly waiting to see what’s new for Android smartwatches. According to a new SamMobile report, Samsung’s next-gen Wear OS devices will be powered by a beefy new chip called the Exynos W920—and at least on paper, the gains are promising.

Let’s get to the nitty-gritty. The Exynos W920 will reportedly be 1.25 times faster, with 1.5GB of RAM and 8.8 times the graphic performance compared to the Exynos 9110, the chip that’s powered every Samsung smartwatch since the Galaxy Watch. SamMobile also says Samsung specifically created this chip for the new Wear, a unified platform that mashes together the best bits of Tizen OS and the old Wear OS. Just looking at the numbers, this is massive. No Wear OS watch currently on the market has more than 1GB of RAM, and the overwhelming majority are still running on last-gen processors.

These specs dovetail with a rumor we heard in May from leaker Ice Universe, who claimed the new Samsung watches would sport a 5nm processor. But hasn’t Wear OS’s problems been mostly about neglected software and incremental updates? Well, to an extent, yes. However, another massive problem has been that, until now, nearly all Wear OS watches have been powered by Qualcomm’s lackluster Snapdragon Wear platform. The Snapdragon Wear chips have always used incredibly outdated processor tech, putting it far behind Samsung’s Exynos and Apple’s S-series processors. That in turn led to a chicken-and-egg scenario. No matter what software updates Google would push out, they would always be somewhat hamstrung by the Snapdragon Wear chips.

For years Wear OS languished on the Snapdragon Wear 2100 chip, which was built on 28nm process tech. This was process node tech that was superseded by 22nm in 2012. That’s two years before the first Wear OS—then Android Wear—smartwatches ever showed up. The Snapdragon Wear platform didn’t get a meaningful update until 2018, when Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon Wear 3100 platform. While it added a co-processor, this chip was also based on 28nm tech. In 2018, both Apple and Samsung had moved on to 7nm and 10nm process tech, respectively. Last June, Qualcomm announced its Snapdragon Wear 4100 platform, which promised to boost processing power from 28nm… to 12nm. While that’s a significant boost, it’s still tech that’s several generations behind. In 2021, there are still only two Wear OS smartwatches that use Qualcomm’s 4100 platform: Mobvoi’s TicWatch Pro 3 and the TicWatch Pro 3 LTE.

This is a big reason why Wear OS smartwatches often felt laggy in comparison to Samsung’s Tizen OS watches, Apple Watches, and less power-intensive Fitbits. It’s also why marquee features like LTE connectivity and sleep-tracking took so long to make their way to Wear OS hardware.

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So the fact that the first smartwatches to feature the new unified platform will be powered by chips using current process tech? That’s worth noting. It’s absolutely not a guarantee that the new platform will be outstanding, or that it won’t have growing pains to overcome. However, it’s at least giving this fledging platform a chance to start off on the best foot possible.

When Samsung and Google officially announced their collaboration, Gizmodo asked if it was possible that Samsung might license its processor tech to other companies in the space. At the time, Samsung declined to comment. It’s very possible that it won’t and that this beefy processor will only work on Samsung watches. However, if it does make its way to other smartwatches, that would be huge. And even if it doesn’t, proving that the new Wear OS could be great on current hardware might give Qualcomm a kick in the butt to stop dragging its feet on updating its Snapdragon Wear platform. Or, who knows? Perhaps it might inspire other vendors to experiment with their own SoC and bypass Qualcomm entirely.

Whatever ends up happening, a capable processor that can showcase Wear OS’s actual potential is long overdue—and it’s reason to hope that Google and Samsung are serious about this new venture succeeding.

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I’ve Waited So Long to See the OnePlus Smartwatch and…Hmm

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It’s not every day that a new player enters the smartwatch game, so I was intrigued when OnePlus’s then-CEO Carl Pei hinted last summer that a wearable might be on the way. The rumors have been ramping up the past few weeks, and now we know what the watch will look like. After months of curiosity, I am…underwhelmed.

Ahead of OnePlus’s upcoming March 23 event, @UnboxTherapy dropped what appears to be a leak of the oh-so-cleverly-named OnePlus Watch. After scrutinizing the image for about two minutes, I can confirm to everyone it looks like every other non-Apple smartwatch out there. There are two buttons on the right side, black straps and a black case, and a fairly standard-looking watch face. Woo. This is some drab, milquetoast design and honestly, I expected a little better from OnePlus.

Smartwatch leaker Ishan Agarwal also dropped some more deets on his Twitter, noting that the watch would be 46mm (a big boy!). It’ll also have IP68 water resistance, 4GB of storage, and the ability to control music and OnePlus TV. In terms of health features, which have become a huge selling point for smartwatches, OnePlus will reportedly offer automatic workout detection, include swimming workouts, and also track sleep, stress, blood oxygen saturation, and heart rate. No word on battery life, but Agarwal said it’ll support Warp Charge, or the ability to get a week of charging in 20 minutes. That implies that you get at least a week of wear out of this thing, which would be great, but who knows.

The interesting part about these rumors is that the OnePlus Watch will not run Wear OS, despite being an Android watch. This has been heavily rumored leading up to the March 23 event, and per the Verge, CEO Pete Lau confirmed in a forum that this will be the case. Instead, the company has opted for an RTOS (real-time operating system) type of OS. No word on what that means for a third-party app ecosystem or a digital assistant. As for why OnePlus didn’t go for Wear OS, Lau says the company wanted to provide a smooth, reliable experience along with great battery life. Wear OS has made improvements over the past year, but battery life is still a sore point for that platform.

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This is all well and good, but it’s not what anyone would describe as terribly exciting. It’d be one thing if OnePlus came barging out the door with a unique design, or decided to put its own spin on Wear OS as the Oppo Watch did. But OnePlus looks to have played it safe—arguably too safe. Unless we see something absurd like 30-day battery life, unique software, or a breakthrough health feature (for which we are not holding our breath), this smartwatch seems like it might be for diehard OnePlus fans only.



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