Google has been busy introducing new Android features in between major updates like Android 14, and the latest of these is especially useful if you use a Wear OS watch on your wrist to control your smart home.
There are a total of 11 new features, according to Google's blog post, on a range of devices, but it's perhaps the Wear OS devices that are the most interesting. For example, you can now control a wider range of devices from your wrist, including robot vacuums and mops, and put a Google Assistant shortcut on your watch face.
Plus, you can now use your Wear OS smartwatch to set your status to home or away in the Google Home app, instead of relying on your phone. That can trigger a series of smart home actions for when you leave or return home.
Also “coming soon” in Wear OS is support for Google Assistant routines: these routines bundle groups of actions, so you can use them to, for example, turn on the lights and heat at the same time, or get directions to work. have your agenda read out loud with a single command.
Even more updates
However, the Android updates are not limited to Wear OS. Google Messages is getting custom background themes for voice messages and full-screen emoji responses to texts (yes, just like iMessage) – you can read more about these upgrades here.
Google TV is getting an additional 10 free channels in the US, on top of the 100+ channels already available. Google doesn't say specifically what these channels are, but does say they include movies, sports, and game shows.
If you use your Android phone as a FIDO2 security key, Android adds the ability to set a custom PIN. This means that if someone gets their hands on your smartphone, they cannot use it as security. key without PIN code.
Finally, Google is adding some extra AI smarts to the TalkBack feature on Android (which describes what's on the screen for people with visual impairments) and is expanding the Live Captions feature (which subtitles audio in real time) to include more languages to cover.