I found the right use case for Wear OS, but it’s not a watch

Rita L. Khouri / Android Authority

The clamshell foldable Huawei P50 Pocket is an impressive piece of hardware, but one element that’s caught my attention from the moment I held it on is the external display. When the phone is off, you can see two large circles: one for the camera sensor and LED flash, the other for the external display. This is the secondary display I keep coming back to because it looks like the perfect placeholder for Wear OS.

our choice: Best Wear OS Watches

I know it’s a weird thing, so I’ll explain.

Rita L. Khouri / Android Authority

Exhibit A: The touchscreen display is a circle like most Wear OS watches and it’s supposed to show brief information that you can do quickly without having to check your phone’s main display. Just like a smartwatch.

Rita L. Khouri / Android Authority

Exhibit B: Huawei is already using round displays for features like smartwatches. You can read your notifications, see the date and time, and see the weather.

Rita L. Khouri / Android Authority

Exhibit C: There’s even a low-power clock mode that doesn’t light up the entire display, instead turning on just a few pixels to show the date, time, and battery level (image at top of the post). Once you turn on the display, you can view the entire clock with a neat animation (image below). Just like a smartwatch’s always-on display compared to a fully active mode.

Rita L. Khouri / Android Authority

We already have a platform – Wear OS – whose sole purpose is to act as a good secondary display for our smartphones, so companies have to reinvent the wheel to give us a fraction of that functionality on their phones’ secondary displays. Why the need to rebuild?

Rita L. Khouri / Android Authority

Now imagine if they didn’t. Imagine if Google decided to make Wear OS (which is based on Android) available on devices already running Android. Or at least all Wear OS APIs. Instead of being limited in how we can interact with the secondary display or respond to notifications, not having access to voice commands, and choosing between just a few widgets and apps, we have proper notification support. That would be, Wear OS version any app we installed, and all the panels and widgets we can think of. All without third-party developers raising an extra finger to add support.

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Rita L. Khouri / Android Authority

Wouldn’t a secondary clamshell or back display be the right use case for Wear OS? The platform already supports rectangular and round displays, so phone makers won’t be limited to the circle form factor. Theoretically speaking, devices like Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra, Meizu Pro 7 Plus, Motorola Razr Series and Galaxy Z Flip series can take advantage of this. I’m just throwing this wish out into the world.

Does Wear OS matter on secondary smartphone displays?

28 votes

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