Google has release a developer preview of Wear OS 5.1 and it has some major changes to make your watch more useful, as well as safer.
A major change is that the wearable OS is now based on Android 15. Wear OS 3 was based on Android 11, Wear OS 4 on Android 13, and Wear OS 5 on Android 14. It is nice to see Google aligning the smartwatch OS with the latest phone OS.
New features in Wear OS 5.1 include the ability to play audio directly to your watch speaker. That’s nice when you want to share or just need to hear a short amount of audio and don’t want to pull out your Bluetooth headphones. On the security side of things, the new OS includes support for Passkeys. Passkeys are replacement for passwords, and are a more secure system.
The release date for Wear OS 5.1 is unknown. Google has already stated the Pixel Watch won’t be receiving an update until March. So we could be looking at the second quarter of next year for a general release.
