Google has a new Weather app for your Wear OS smartwatch
ThePixel Watch’s launch should act as a catalyst for the Wear OS ecosystem’s growth. Irrespective of how good or bad the watch is, Google’s first wearable should help attract more developers to the platform, leading to more apps being available for Wear OS 3. The company has played its part in making the OS more attractive byredesigning the Wear OS Play Store, revamping theGoogle Keep app for smartwatches, and evenreleasing a Phone app for the platform. Now, ahead of the Pixel Watch’s launch, Google has released a new Weather app for all Wear OS 3-running smartwatches.
Spotted byMishaal Rahman, the bare bones Weather app does what it is supposed to: show the weather prediction, including the UV index. The app is basic and only shows the weather of your current location—you cannot see the weather prediction of any other city. Scroll down, and you will see the weather forecast for the next eight hours. This is followed by the weather prediction for the next five days. There’s a Settings button at the bottom from where you can change the weather unit from Celsius to Fahrenheit (or vice versa).
The app packs a Forecast tile, which displays the current weather condition and status. For watch face customization, you get complications for the UV index and the weather.
Google’s Weather app for Wear OS pales compared to third-party offerings already available on the Play Store, including AccuWeather. The latter can show more detailed weather information, including the humidity and wind speed. Even Samsung’s Weather app for theGalaxy Watch 4and Watch 5 series is more feature-packed. Nonetheless, this is still a good first start from Google, and here’s hoping it continues to update the app with more features instead of abandoning it.
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