Summary
OS hybrid interface.. Each year, Google unveils a plethora of new features for the Android platform at MWC. Naturally, this year was no exception, with new versions being released for programs like Fitbit, Google Docs, Google Maps, and Google Messages.
OS hybrid interface
The Wear OS Maps and Wallet applications also saw some upgrades, but the most significant Wear OS-related news may have just been revealed a few hours after Google made its Android update public. Google unveiled a brand-new “hybrid OS interface” for Wear OS, which significantly extends battery life and is now available on the OnePlus Watch 2.
What is the hybrid OS interface?
Many Wear OS smartwatches really include two chipsets, as Google explains. Wear OS is always powered by a powerful applications processor (AP), such the Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 seen in the OnePlus Watch 2 and Pixel Watch 2. An extremely low-power co-processor microcontroller unit (MCU)—like the Bestechnic BES2700 found in the OnePlus Watch 2—that runs a unique real-time operating system (RTOS) is often combined with that AP.
With this dual-chipset design, the higher power AP may sleep for as long as possible, extending the watch’s battery life, by offloading less difficult jobs to the lower power MCU.
Although this strategy seems like a “simple” technique to extend battery life, the trick is really dividing the task across two completely separate chipsets running two completely different operating systems. This is where the new hybrid OS interface from Wear OS is useful.The operating system may easily transmit and receive certain kinds of data to whichever RTOS is available on the secondary chipset thanks to Wear’s hybrid OS interface, which is made up of APIs. The three main categories that these APIs fit into are Display, Health Services, and Notifications. It is possible to delegate certain display rendering tasks to the MCU using the Display APIs, which is probably how watch faces created using the Watch Face Format are produced on the MCU. Features like accurate exercise tracking, automated sports identification, and health data monitoring may be offloaded to the MCU thanks to the Health Services APIs. Last but not least, the Notifications APIs allow the MCU to handle bridged notifications—that is, notifications that are synchronized with your phone.
Hybrid operating systems
With its default “Smart Mode,” the OnePlus Watch 2 achieves up to 100 hours of battery life by fully using Wear OS’s hybrid OS interface. As I have been using the watch for the last week, I can personally confirm to the fact that Android Police’s review of the OnePlus Watch 2 mentioned how amazing the watch’s battery life is. When you read, ignore, or engage with the majority of alerts on the OnePlus Watch 2, the MCU is in operation. It is also active when you navigate through most tiles or use most watch faces. Whenever you want to access a certain capability or run an app, the watch effortlessly transitions to the AP. You may enjoy excellent battery life without compromising the watch’s essential functions, thanks to the hybrid OS interface.
Will the hybrid OS interface come to other Wear OS smartwatches?
The hybrid OS interface developed by Google is a game-changer for Wear OS. This begs the obvious question of if or when other Android smartwatches, such as Google’s own Pixel Watch 2, will get similar enhancements. Ultimately, there are other Wear OS smartwatches with MCUs than the OnePlus Watch 2. A TechInsights breakdown reveals that the Pixel Watch 2 is equipped with a dual-core ARM Cortex-M33 MCU from NXP Semiconductors. In the most recent episode of the Android Faithful podcast (disclaimer: I co-host), Björn Kilburn, Google’s vice president of Wear OS and Android Health, responded to a query about any hardware requirements that would hinder the release of these enhancements to other wristwatches.
Björn retorted that it “depends” a great deal on the “power strategy” and underlying watch architecture of each unique OEM. He continues by saying that the degree to which a given OEM adopts the hybrid OS interface depends on their underlying watch architecture, but he “would not be surprised” if more OEMs choose to implement the hybrid interface for at least notifications.
Though Björn is in charge of the Wear OS platform as a whole and each OEM will want to make their own announcements, you might be disappointed that he didn’t specifically confirm whether or not the Pixel Watch 2 or other Wear OS smartwatches will benefit from the new hybrid OS interface. My knowledge of the hybrid OS interface suggests that OEMs—including the Pixel Watch 2 team—will need to put in some effort to allow support for it on their own devices. Wear OS now provides these additional APIs, but the custom RTOS operating on the MCU must be able to make use of them. The BES2700 found in the OnePlus Watch 2 was obviously enabled by OnePlus/Oppo or Bestechnic, thus it stands to reason that Google or NXP would have to do the same for the Cortex-M33 MCU present in the Pixel Watch 2.
Björn informed us that there are more power benefits in Wear OS 4 that the company didn’t discuss at this launch, even if your OEM doesn’t upgrade their smartwatch to fully use Wear OS’s hybrid OS interface. He said that original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) would devise other strategies to extend battery life, some of which may or may not use the hybrid OS interface. After all, it seems that Oppo made a significant contribution to the creation of the hybrid OS interface’s notifications section. According to Björn, the Wear OS team is open to creative ideas from its ecosystem partners, particularly if they provide customers with more “trustworthy battery life.”
I’ve included the whole conversation we had with Björn Kilburn below if you’d want to learn more about the Wear OS hybrid operational system. At 21:00 in the VOD, we ask him about the hybrid OS interface that will soon be available for watches that already exist. In addition, Björn’s reaction to my query about the Watch Face Format at 17:55 is worth listening to if you’re a watch face developer. He goes over some of the restrictions that come with getting old watch faces to function on the MCU.
