WhatsApp will have official app for smartwatches with Wear OS

Wear OS, Google’s operating system for smartwatches, will get a native WhatsApp app. The information was released during the Google I/O developer conference this Wednesday (10) afternoon.

With the innovation, users will be able to use smartwatches to perform almost all common messenger actions. At first, it will be possible to reply to recent messages by text or voice and answer calls..

On the other hand, Wear OS watch users cannot start a new conversation or make a call in an old chat. According to Google, these options should be added in the future, when the app is available to all users.

For greater security of user data, Conversations made through the smartwatch will have end-to-end encryption. The same procedure that is already happening in chats on mobile and in the desktop version.

The beta version of WhatsApp for Wear OS became available earlier this week. Thus, users of WhatsApp beta for Android (version 2.23.10.10) will already be able to link the account to the watch software.

According to Sameer Samat, an engineer at Google, final version of native WhatsApp app will be released in North America summer. So this should happen between June and September.

The fastest growing smartwatch platform

At the developer conference, Samat stated that Wear OS is the fastest growing smartwatch platform in the world. According to the engineer, The operating system has grown fivefold since Wear OS 3 launched in 2021.

It is worth noting that the largest smartwatch manufacturer supported by Google is Samsung, followed by Fossil and Ticwatch. Also, Search Giant launched Pixel Watch in 2022.