Wear OS has long dragged behind Apple’s Watch OS, but a new survey suggests that Google is about to take on its rival with some innovative health-focused features.
The survey was sent out via Google’s User Experience Research department and included a bunch of health-tracker queries. Google hasn’t been forthcoming about plans for an OS update, but the survey’s content certainly suggests that it’s got big plans for the future.
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Respondents who received the questionnaire were quizzed on topics such as sleep analysis, stress tracking, indoor air quality and gym equipment pairing. They were then asked how important these features were to them – or conversely how little they cared about them (no-one really needs to track their water intake on their smartwatch, right?).
You can see the full list of topics below (via Droid-Life.)
- SPO2 Tracking
- Smart Alarms
- Sleep Apnea Detection
- Sleep Analysis
- Heartbeat Alerts
- Automatic Workout Detection
- Rep Detection
- Activity Logging
- Recovery Time
- Stress Tracking
- Medical Device Pairing
- Gym Equipment Pairing
- Indoor Air Quality
- Activity/Vitals Tracking
- Share Vitals
- Micro-logging
- Water-Intake Tracking
- Food & Calorie Tracking
- Flights of Stairs
- Breathing Exercises
- Compass
- Elevation Tracking
- Cycle Tracking
Judging from these details, Google is about to go in hard on the health and fitness aspects of Wear OS. This is welcome news to those users currently bemoaning the limitations of Google-based devices, as most fitness-nerds say these watches aren’t as intuitive as the gadgets from big competitors like Apple.
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Google flagged that it was getting serious about smartwatches when it bought Fitbit back in November. At the time, the company also announced that it planned on releasing its own Made by Google wearable device, so it’s not really a big surprise that the developers are putting out feelers before they start building and testing products.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.