Material 3 Expressive is Coming to Wear OS 6, First on Pixel Watch

Now that you’ve read about Google’s new Material 3 Expressive on your Pixel phone running Android 16, you might want to know how it’ll look on your Pixel Watch running Wear OS 6. Google shared some details and while it may not seem like as big of a change as we’ll get on phones, it will improve the Wear OS experience.

For smartwatches and Wear OS with Material 3 Expressive, Google says that it is focusing the design around round displays, leaving animations that “trace the curvature of the display,” bringing a sense of depth. This update will also mean dynamic color-theming on the watch for the first time, smoother transitions with “shape-morphing elements” that adapt to your screen, and refreshes to things like media controls with motion and responsive feedback.

In the images you’ll find below, you will see how this means changes to the settings shade, how tiles will look with dynamic colors and more prominent buttons, the new notification style, etc.

I will point out that the dynamic theming on Wear OS 6 will not match whatever you have on your paired phone, like a Pixel Watch 3 and Pixel 9 Pro. Google said that their research found that people don’t want that, and that they’d rather customize each experience.

The new Material 3 Expressive theme isn’t all that’s new in Wear OS 6. I’d imagine we’ll get more details at I/O or in the near future, but Google did mention that this update will improve performance and better optimize power, bringing at least a 10% increase in battery life.

Again, Pixel Watches will see this update first “later this year.” Google to confirm that

// Google

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