Wear OS 7: 5 new features coming to your Android smartwatch in 2026

Your Android smartphone will benefit from many new features in 2026, but Google has not forgotten smartwatch users. The company officially announced Wear OS 7 in an Android Developer Blog post, detailing several of the changes it will make. Users can expect to get their hands on this update later in 2026, while developers already have access to the Wear OS 7 Canary emulator in order to test their apps for compatibility.

Along with the release schedule, Google also revealed some exciting new features that you’ll get on your smartwatch with Wear OS 7. Some of them fix big problems that caused users to abandon their smartwatches in the past, while others simply make the smartwatch experience more seamless.

The main goals of this update are to reduce the need to constantly take out your phone, make Wear OS more customizable and similar to Android, and help batteries last much longer. Google is also integrating Gemini Intelligence more tightly into Wear OS 7 following its recent aggressive push to integrate AI throughout the Google ecosystem, and making it much easier for developers to create native apps for smartwatches.

Google added over-the-air updates to Android smartphones in 2025, allowing users to track real-time data directly from the notification bar without opening an app. With Wear OS 7, this feature is now available on your smartwatch.

We’ve seen how useful over-the-air updates are on a phone, allowing you to track deliveries, running timers, or ongoing downloads much more intuitively. This feature makes even more sense on a smartwatch that’s always on your wrist, allowing you to keep up with updates without digging through your pockets for your phone. Additionally, this feature will work with your phone’s notifications, meaning you’ll be able to see live updates from your phone on your smartwatch screen even if you don’t have the app on the watch itself.

It’s important to note that this will only work with apps developed to support this feature. Native apps like Google Maps should work on day one, but you may have to wait for developers behind apps like Uber or DoorDash to buy into the program before you can track deliveries on your smartwatch.

AI is everywhere today, but Google thinks it’s not used as much as it should be. With the company going so far as to integrate AI into your mouse cursor, it’s no surprise that Google is pushing Gemini Intelligence heavily with Wear OS 7. Google hasn’t yet given all the details on what that means, but the Android Developer Blog post mentions several AI automation features that users can expect from smartwatches in 2026 and beyond.

The first of these is to make AI more proactive and useful. Google gives the example of using a voice command to start tracking a run instead of manually tinkering with the small screen to set a timer. The new Gemini Intelligence in Wear OS 7 will also enable task automation using AI. This will allow you to use your smartwatch to automatically perform tasks on your phone without having to take it out, like ordering food, which you can then track using the new Live Updates feature.

Smartwatches are great, but the smaller screen size means the data displayed on them is different from what appears on your phone. For most iterations of Wear OS, your smartwatch displayed chunks of information as tiles – widgets that take up your entire screen in a tile-like format. These did the job very well, showing you important information without requiring you to tinker with your watch’s small screen too much.

Google is introducing a new look for your widgets with Wear OS 7. This will make your widgets look more like the ones you find on your Android phone. You can choose between “Small” and “Large” for the sizes, which mirror the 2×1 and 2×2 widget sizes you’ll find in the same app on Android.

This should make the UI more consistent across different devices, but Google understands that not everyone will immediately like the new look. As such, these new Wear widgets will work alongside existing tiles, and those who prefer the look of full-screen tiles will be able to continue using what they’re most accustomed to.

Pulling out your phone just to skip a song or pause a podcast is annoying, especially if you’re jogging. Luckily, having a smartwatch means you don’t have to do this. When auto-launch media controls are enabled, your smartwatch interface automatically turns into a playback manager every time your phone plays a song or video.

This feature has been around for a long time on previous versions of Wear OS, but there has always been one major annoyance that users had to put up with: when the option was enabled, the reading menu would open on your smartwatch even with apps you didn’t want to use it with. Sure, having the ability to pause and skip songs on Spotify is nice, but you don’t always want your smartwatch screen to be interrupted when you start a YouTube video.

In previous versions of Wear OS, you had to disable the feature completely to avoid this. With Wear OS 7, Google introduces the ability to enable or disable this option for each specific application. This new feature comes with the ability to switch between different audio output sources more easily than ever, significantly improving media playback on smartwatches.

Whether you’re running or recording your sleep, a smartwatch that dies mid-run is never a good experience. With Wear OS 7, Google claims that your smartwatch running the updated operating system will last 10% longer than before. It might not seem like much at first, but a 10% increase in battery life could mean the difference between a full night of sleep tracking or your watch dying before your alarm goes off.

Another new feature coming to Wear OS 7 is the Wear Workout Tracker. Developing fitness apps suitable for smartwatches from scratch is incredibly difficult, as they need to integrate the watch’s sensors and process data throughout the day without consuming all the battery. The Wear Workout Tracker Kit gives developers some starting features to work with, ensuring that most background processes are handled correctly. With this update, users can expect to see much better and less battery-hungry fitness apps from your smartwatch.