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Your smartwatch is one of the easiest ways to get a quick look at the upcoming weather forecast, making it one of the most used functions on wearables. Google is continuing to change how weather forecasts work on its smartwatches, and it means the end of an older Wear OS app.
The Weather app designed for wrists was first introduced with Wear OS 3 back in 2022. If you have the app downloaded to your smartwatch, it will remain active but it’s no longer available for download on all modern watches.
Google’s statement on the changes says, “With your favorite watch brands offering their own default weather apps on Wear OS, we’ll no longer offer Google’s built-in Weather app on Wear OS 6+ smartwatches.”
If your watch runs the older Wear OS 5 or earlier, you can still download the Weather app from the Play Store. It’ll continue to be there for the rest of your watch’s life, or until Google changes this policy further.
If you have a watch running the latest Wear OS 6 software, you’ll have a different experience. Those on a Pixel Watch with Wear OS 6 or later will be moved over to the recently released Pixel Weather app. That debuted last week with a new design with Material 3 Expressive elements.
If you have a Wear OS watch from another company running Wear OS 6 or later, you’ll be able to continue using the Weather app if you had it previously installed. Google hasn’t specified if there will be an eventual end date.
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New downloads of Weather are no longer possible on Wear OS 6 devices from third-party manufacturers, such as Samsung, OnePlus and others. Instead, Google wants you to use the pre-installed options on your watch or a third-party alternative. Some highly-rated alternatives include AccuWeather, MyRadar Weather Radar, and Windy.
Google also notes how you can talk directly to Gemini or Assistant to get a weather forecast without touching an app. That feature can be hit or miss depending on how useful you find voice assistant functionality on your smartwatch.
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About James Peckham
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