Android 12 was one of the biggest visual updates for compatible devices in years, partly thanks to Google’s new design philosophy calledMaterial You. Dynamic theming changed the visual game unlike anything preceding it, and we are still watching first-party apps like Google Tasks switching to dynamic theming. With the firstAndroid 14Developer Preview here, we have our first indications of Google’s intention to bring dynamic theming tothe best Wear OS watches.
Material You lets applications borrow colors from your wallpaper to make the UI feel cohesive across your home screen and apps. Google kicked off the slow transition with Android system components and a few of its core apps, and is now working on ways to bring dynamic theming to Wear OS.9to5Googlehas spotted a new option called DYNAMIC_COLOR_THEME_ENABLED for wearables in the latest developer preview build.
The presence of this option doesn’t reveal much about the system’s workings. It’s unclear if your phone’s Android system would tell the Wear OS device which colors to use for dynamic theming or if the watch colors would be created independently. If we’re looking at the former idea, the implementation could resemble an automated version of the Pixel Watch’s customization options, where you may currently manually tweak colors for most watch faces. Since it isn’t necessary we pair the Wear OS watch with an Android device at all times, Google needs to make sure dynamic theming also works when the wearable is paired with an older Android device or an iPhone.
Although some first and third-party apps designed to run on Wear OS havepicked up a few of Google’s latest Material Design featureslike rounded corners and new button shapes, the core operating system is still based on Android 11. Material You would be a breath of fresh air and soon, your watch might look like a newer Android device with dynamic theming support. It remains unclear if Google will need to upgrade Wear OS from an Android 11 codebase to a new version of Android for this to work, but dynamic theming for wearables is certainly in the cards.
