That being said, custom Tiles may sound familiar to you. Well, that’s because they’ve been around since 2019. Agenda: Next event; Clock: Hand-Wash Timer, Timer; Google Fit: Breathe, Goals, Heart Points, Heart rate, Workout; Google News: Headlines, and Weather: Forecast have been around for quite some time.
Custom Tiles can now be submitted by developers of non-Google apps
Some of you may have noticed that all of these apps come from Google, not a third-party developer. Well, if you’re a third-party developer, now you can join the party. Google is basically opening up Wear OS a bit. This was an expected move, as Google announced earlier this year that it’s working on such an option. That happened at the beginning of the year. Following that, in May, at Google I/O, the company actually showed off some upcoming custom tiles from third-party developers. It showed off Adidas Running, Calm, Flo, Golf Pad, and more. Developers can now upload to the Google Play Console and publicly release Wear OS tiles. Do note that Google said these tiles are supposed to only show important info that “that users can read in a matter of seconds.” In addition to that, the company added some additional considerations.
Battery life is a huge priority, so there are some rules
First, the user’s battery is a priority. Developers are told to avoid elements that require frequent re-rendering. Second, you should save highly interactive experiences for your activities. You can, however, link into those activities from your Tile. Developers are also advised to avoid text like “x minutes ago”, or something similar, as that requires frequent updates. It will be interesting to see what developers come up with. There’s certainly a lot of room for some informative custom Tiles. There are tons of great apps in the Play Store, and having info from those apps on your wrist, in a glanceable form, could be neat.
