Google has announced a partnership with Masimo to build a reference platform for Wear OS.
The platform will include a suite of health and wellness tracking tools that should make it easier for OEMs to make Wear OS watches again.
There was a time when if you were after a smartwatch, you had a host of options available to you. It wasn't just Apple Watch, Samsung Galaxy Watch or Google's Pixel Watch, but Fossil offered a multitude of smartwatch models across its various brands from Michael Kors to Diesel.
When Google teamed up with Samsung to launch Wear OS 3 back in 2021, things shifted in the smartwatch world. Not only did Wear OS 3 – and the more recent iterations of that software – not support iPhone, but fewer manufacturers like Fossil were on board with producing smartwatches to run on it.
One of the reasons for that, as 9to5Google reports, is that Wear OS 3 and newer have taken a different approach to health. Google has moved away from Google Fit and over to Fitbit in the last couple of years, while Samsung has its own Samsung Health offering, and never needed Google Fit.
It meant manufacturers like Fossil were then left short as without Google Fit, they would have to come up with their own solutions to health and fitness features where previously that was sorted through Fit. As such, Fossil confirmed it would no longer make Wear OS watches at the beginning of this year, which was a blow when it came to variety.
Will the variety return?
Things may shift in the smartwatch field again, however. Health technology company Masimo – the one in a legal dispute with Apple at the moment and the one responsible for Apple disabling blood oxygen tracking on its Watch Series 9, Watch Ultra 2 and Watch Series 10 in the US – has announced a new partnership with Google.
It's said Google and Masimo will work together to build a "reference platform" for Wear OS that will enable OEMs like Fossil to make smartwatches for Wear OS and have "a suite of health and wellness tracking tools" that are provided by Masimo, replacing what Google Fit once offered.
Masimo said: "By incorporating Masimo's breakthrough biosensing technologies – based on its decades of expertise developing industry-leading hospital monitoring solutions – and standardising smartwatch devices using the Masimo reference platform, OEMs will be able to more efficiently build and bring high-performing Wear OS smartwatches to market.
"The robust reference platform is designed to support the fast-growing Wear OS ecosystem – including with a suite of health and wellness tracking tools that consumers can trust to provide accurate, reliable data, seamless integration with Android smartphones, and a high-quality, high-performance experience."
The partnership should still allow OEMs to customise Wear OS and design smartwatches as they wish, but Masimo will provide some of the hardware sensors within those smartwatches and some of the software, including the companion phone app, 9to5Google reports.
Will it be enough to bring some OEMs back into the smartwatch world? We sure hope so.
