Google is coming with even more improvements for Wear OS 4
Google didn’t make any announcements about Wear OS 4 during I/O 2023, but that doesn’t mean the company isn’t working on it. The wearable operating system is expected to receive the major update from Wear OS 3 to 4 later this year, with health at its heart. Little may have been said about it during Google I/O: Google did publish a few things about it and let it be known that there will be innovations for Health Services and Health Connect. Here they are.
Wear OS 4 gets more health options
You can learn more about what’s coming on YouTube in Google’s developer channel. The “What’s new in Health on Android” video explains that Health Connect will be built into Android 14 and should be a very important part. So forget health as a standalone app: it becomes an integral part of the operating system.
For example, you will soon be able to access Health Connect directly from Settings and the option will also be improved in the sense that it will soon be included in the system updates instead of the separate app updates. But there’s more. This will make it easier to keep track of your period (if you have one) and you can store your fitness data faster in badges, although this is initially only possible for the heart rate. Developers will have until the end of 2024 to migrate Google Fit to Health Connect.
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Wear OS better for golfers
Wear OS 4 will also be considerably more interesting for golfers, because it will soon be able to detect the number of golf strokes you make. However, this does not apply to all devices, but only to specific devices that support this. It is still unknown which devices these are. Google has been working on it with Samsung, so we wouldn’t be surprised if this option comes to Galaxy Watch 4 and 5.
If you want more control over what data about your body is collected in the background by other apps, then there is good news. Google wants to give end users more control over their data and this is bringing new permission types to apps that can access those body sensors in the background.
Are you a golfer and are you waiting for this innovation? Leave it now in the comments.
