Google releases Wear OS 6 with Material 3 Expressive design refresh

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Google announced new features for Wear OS 6 at Google I/O 2025 today, giving the operating system a design makeover with Material 3 Expressive, the design language the company unveiled earlier this month.

Google released the developer preview of Wear OS 6, which is based on Android 16, for testing on Tuesday.

With Wear OS 6, Google is trying to make apps look more cohesive, so app tiles will adopt the default system font. Plus, the dynamic theming library will adjust your app or tile’s color to match the color scheme of the watch face on Pixel Watches.

The core promise of the new design reference platform is to let developers build better customization in apps along with seamless transitions. The company is releasing a design guideline for developers along with Figma design files.

In addition, Google is releasing The Wear Compose Material 3 and brand-new Wear Protolayout libraries for developers with extended color schemes, typography, and shapes for more dynamic-looking apps.

Image Credits: Google

To match the circular look of a Wear OS 6 watch, Google is introducing a three-slot tile layout with a title slot, a main content slot, and a bottom slot that would make for a consistent look across different-sized screens.

The company is also adding newly designed components, including buttons, progress indicators, and scroll indicators, to better suit circular watch displays. Developers can display collapsing components for scrolling in different ways. For instance, components can scale down when they near the top or bottom of a watch’s screen.

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Image Credits: Google.

Wear OS 6 adds ways to change the look of a watch face through animated state transitions from ambient to interactive and photo watch faces. Plus, there is now a new API to build watch marketplaces.

Image Credits: Google

Google is adding a CredentialManager API to Wear OS, starting with Pixel Watches on Wear OS 5.1, which will enable passkey authentication through the watch. Wear OS 5.1 on Pixel also gets richer media controls that allow users to fast-forward or rewind podcasts. What’s more, compatible apps will also get a new menu for playlist and controls, including shuffle, “like,” and repeat.