These 5 features would make Wear OS 6 Google’s best update yet

It’s almost May, and in the Android world, that can mean only one thing: it’s almost Google I/O time. Google’s annual developer conference is always home to an onslaught of news and announcements, and I/O 2025 won’t be any different. In addition to expected talks about Gemini, Android 16, and Google apps like Gmail and Maps, we should also hear about Wear OS 6.

Although we don’t anticipate Google to launch its next Wear OS update at I/O (it’ll likely be released later this summer or fall), it is very likely Google will give us our first glimpse at Wear OS 6 next month. And, hopefully, it’ll be a big deal. Last year’s Wear OS 5 update was fine, but beyond a new app drawer layout and under-the-hood changes to health tracking and watch faces, there wasn’t much else to sink our watch bands into.

For the most part, Wear OS is in a good place right now. It’s fast, reliable, and well-polished. But there are a few big changes we need to see, and I really hope they happen with Wear OS 6.

Ah, timers. This is something I wrote an entire article about a few weeks ago, but if I’m talking about my overall Wear OS 6 wishlist, I need to mention it here, too. As it stands today, Wear OS doesn’t natively support multiple timers. Whether you have a Pixel Watch, OnePlus Watch, TicWatch, etc., you can only set one timer at a time. If you try to set a timer while you have another one going, you need to cancel that first one before you can start a new one.

To be fair, there are ways around this. Third-party apps on the Play Store allow you to set multiple timers. Additionally, Samsung Wear OS watches also have the functionality through the Samsung Clock app. That’s all fine and dandy, but you shouldn’t need to download another app or have a Wear OS watch from a specific company to unlock such basic functionality.

It took Apple a while to figure out multiple timers for the Apple Watch, but that eventually changed in 2021 with the watchOS 8 update. There’s no reason 2025 shouldn’t be the year Google finally does the same for Wear OS.

Speaking of “Things you would assume must be on Wear OS in 2025 but somehow aren’t,” Wear OS 6 needs to usher in a dedicated Google Tasks app for the platform.

I switched to Tasks as my primary to-do list app earlier this year, and while it’s not perfect, it’s worked very well for what I want out of a to-do app. It’s simple and easy to use, the integration with Gemini is great, and the seamless syncing with Google Calendar has been a huge advantage over competing apps like Todoist and TickTick. However, Google Tasks is not perfect, and a big reason is its lack of a Wear OS app.

Almost more so than multiple timers, there really is no excuse for this one. Tasks is Google’s primary to-do list platform, and it’s deeply integrated throughout numerous other Google services — including Calendar, Gmail, Chat, Drive, Gemini, and more. It’s very much a core part of the overall Google ecosystem, so for it to not have any presence on Wear OS is baffling. All I want is a Tasks app to view, create, and cross off items from my to-do list on my wrist. This should have been added to Wear OS years ago, so here’s to hoping Google stops dragging its feet and makes it happen with Wear OS 6.

For all intents and purposes, Google Assistant is a dying product. Android phones today give you the choice to use Gemini or Google Assistant, but before the year is over, Google will force everyone to switch to Gemini. And it just makes sense. Gemini is the digital assistant Google has been dumping all of its time and money into for the last year, and while not perfect, it has very clear advantages over the old Google Assistant experience.

Wear OS smartwatches, however, all still rely on Google Assistant. It gets the job done, but going from using Gemini on my OnePlus 13 to interacting with Google Assistant on my OnePlus Watch 3 is a jarring experience. Having access to all (or most) of the same Gemini features on my watch that I have on my phone is a future I’m looking forward to, and I hope Google is able to fully deliver on it with this year’s Wear OS 6 update.

Wear OS, meanwhile, is just sitting there with nothing to show for. Swiping down to view your Quick Settings reveals a decent selection of settings, but you have zero control over the order they appear or the ability to add/remove toggles from the list.

I enable Sleep Mode on my OnePlus Watch 3 every night before bed. I’d love for it to be one of the first toggles I see in my Quick Settings menu, but since it’s placed higher up on the list, I have to scroll up every time I want to enable it. Comparatively, the volume toggle is one of the first settings I see, but I never use it. I wish I could move it higher up on the Quick Settings page (or remove it altogether), yet those options don’t exist. The Quick Settings layout you get on Wear OS right now is the one you’re stuck with. It’s a nonsensical restriction and one that needs to go away in Wear OS 6.

In 2019, Google added tiles to Wear OS for the first time. Essentially widgets that live on either side of your clock face, tiles allow you to see things like the weather, upcoming calendar events, and health/fitness data without opening an app. But as great as tiles are on paper — and as helpful as they can be in practice  — they’re long overdue for some updates.

For one thing, developer support for tiles leaves much to be desired — even from apps made by Google itself. I can add a Google Keep tile to see my grocery list, but I can’t check off items from it without first opening the app. The Google Calendar tile shows me my upcoming appointments, but I’d also like one with a full monthly view. Third-party apps are even worse, with many Wear OS apps from other developers not named Google not offering tile support at all.

I’m not entirely sure what needs to change with tiles in Wear OS 6, but I do know that they need some sort of revitalization. Something like the Apple Watch’s Smart Stack — which allows you to scroll through numerous widgets just by moving the crown — would be incredible. Make tiles more accessible, build better support for them with first-party Google apps, and get developers excited again to boost third-party support. It’s a lot to ask, but it needs to happen.

That’s what I want to see in Wear OS 6, but will we actually get any of this? Right now, it’s almost entirely up in the air.

Other than Google’s plans to phase out Google Assistant with Gemini, we haven’t heard much else about Wear OS 6’s new features. Google has been tight-lipped, and the rumor mill has been quiet, so we could be in store for anything. Given the tame nature of Wear OS 5, I would hope that means we’re due for a more substantive update with Wear OS 6. That could be wishful thinking on my part, but what can I say? I’m an optimist.

Thankfully, we shouldn’t have too long to wait before we know what’s going on. Google I/O 2025 kicks off on May 20, and that’s where we’ll get the official lowdown on what’s hot (or not) with the next generation of Wear OS.