Wear OS 5 leak: Google Pixel Watch 3 with UWB and Bluetooth LE audio support
A deep dive into the Wear OS 5 Developer Preview reveals a few neat features that will come to future smartwatches. The first model to offer these features is likely to be the upcoming Google Pixel Watch 3, which will be announced in August.
The two most notable features are UWB and Bluetooth LE Audio. UWB connectivity has been hinted at in previous reports and would likely enable secure unlocking of a paired smartphone and more accurate location tracking of both devices. Of course, for this to work, the smartphone must also support UWB.
The Bluetooth LE Audio part is another feature that is not readily available on smartwatches. The Google Pixel Watch 3 could actually be the first to have this feature. It is a Bluetooth protocol that was originally developed for IoT devices. This enables Bluetooth connections that consume significantly less power and thus do not put too much strain on the battery. After all, smart wearables and IoT devices do not necessarily have much to offer in this regard. However, Bluetooth LE alone cannot transmit audio data, so smartwatches only use the protocol to connect to your phone.
But thanks to Bluetooth LE audio support, the wearables can connect to your headphones and stream music. Moreover, the protocol can establish multiple connections at once and provide music to multiple devices. Essentially, people who use their smartwatches to stream music on the go benefit greatly from the BT LE audio protocol as it extends battery life.
While we haven’t seen any smartwatches that support the protocol yet, there are a handful of earbuds and headphones that transmit via BT LE. The Google Pixel Watch 3 could now become the first smartwatch. Incidentally, a new report revealed the chipset just yesterday.
