Android watches are trying to get more efficient and more useful for runners. 

Google has just taken a lap off Google I/O2024, the next software version for Android smartwatches, Wear OS5, and a standout upgrade is the promise of enhanced smartwatch battery life, with Wear OS5 providing major efficiency improvements. According to the company's claim, the Wear OS5 will save the smartwatch battery by 4% while running a marathon, compared to a watch with wear OS20.

Some Wear OS watches are more successful in terms of battery life than others, and Samsung watches and some other third-party watches offer multi-day battery life. The experience of Google's own Pixel Watch series is 1 day battery life just like the Apple Watch, but this Wear OS5 news shows that battery life will be a priority for the upcoming Pixel Watch3.

Beyond better battery life, Wear OS5 is also bringing in some additional exercise data that runners may find useful. Ground contact time, stride, vertical vibration and vertical ratio are new indicators that users can monitor. These are the kind of data points that Apple welcomed into the watchOS smartwatch software in 2022, so it's encouraging to see Wear OS catch up.

That said, the Wear OS update continues to prove less dramatic than the watchOS update. The only other update worth noting at this point is the next iteration of the watch face format, which offers deeper customization for watch face creation. If precedent suggests, the Wear OS5 could be the first available on the Samsung Galaxy Watch7 (and the rumored Galaxy Watch7Ultra) this summer. However, it will blend with Samsung's One UI skin. When the Pixel Watch3 probably arrives in the fall, you'll get more of the pure images that Wear OS5 can do.