A few hours ago, Google unveiled Wear OS 6 alongside Android 16. This new version of Wear OS introduces a huge UI redesign, smoother animations, the Gemini AI assistant, and improved battery life. It is coming to Galaxy Watches later this year.

Wear OS 6 is built with the same Material 3 Expressive design language seen on Android 16. It is designed to be more playful, attract user attention to the most important things, and make full use of the round screen on smartwatches. It features a new set of animations based on improved motion physics. It is space-efficient and makes buttons more easily tappable.

Material 3 Expressive design, new animations, haptic feedback

It also brings Material You colors, which were earlier only available on Android smartphones and tablets. With the new design, when a user selects an accent color for their watch face, the same color is applied across the UI and inside apps.

UI elements can switch between shapes more smoothly. For example, a pill-shaped Quick Setting toggle can turn into a rounded rectangle when activated. While scrolling through a list, items in the list trace the curces of the screen, adding a sense of depth to the information. Tiles are now more dense, displaying more information and actions in the same size.

Haptic feedback is used when you interact with certain elements on the screen, such as Quick Setting toggles. It can also be felt when you scroll through a list or enter PIN to unlock the device.

Gemini replaces Google Assistant

Wear OS 6 also replaces Google Assistant with Gemini. The new AI assistant understands natural language much more easily, which means you don't have to be preice when you ask it to do something. It is also more tightly integrated with more apps and services, including Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Google Home, Spotify, YouTube, and YouTube Music. It can now read aloud and display both text and images.

Improved battery life

Despite all these new features and a newer design, Google says Wear OS 6 improves battery life of a smartwatch by up to 10%. Hopefully, it will be noticeable on Galaxy Watches, which currently last a day or a day and a half with AOD turned on.

On top of all these features, Samsung will bring its own features to Galaxy Watches, including Now Bar, Now Brief, App Shortcuts, new app icons and system sounds, and the Antioxidant Index. It could also bring the ability to shuffle watch faces daily and battery health protection measures.

The Wear OS 6 update will be released later this year, starting with the Pixel Watch series. A few weeks later, it will be released to eligible Galaxy Watches. Gemini will be released to eligible Galaxy Watches (and other Wear OS devices) in the coming months.