Prepare for Wear OS 7

This page explains how to set up the official emulator for testing, and how to upgrade your app to target Wear OS 7.

Set up an emulator

Following the same process as for mobile devices, use the Wear OS 7 emulator to test behavior changes and explore new features in Wear OS 7.

To set up the Wear OS 7 emulator, follow the instructions to Create a Wear OS virtual device, taking note of the following requirements:

• Use Android Studio Canary.
• Select the Wear OS 7.0 - Preview system image when creating the virtual device.

Pre-installed experiences

The Wear OS 7 emulator includes a variety of pre-installed applications, watch faces, and widgets to help you test your app's integration with the system.

Applications

• Contacts
• Find Hub
• Find my phone
• Flashlight
• Media Controls
• Messages
• Phone
• Play Store
• Settings

Watch faces

• Offhand
• Perfunctory
• Superficial

Widgets

• Favorites
• Contact

Update your app to target Wear OS 7

After you update your app to prepare it for Wear OS 7, you can further improve your app's compatibility by targeting Wear OS 7 (API level 37), which is based on Android 17, or higher.

If you update your target SDK version, handle the system behavior changes that take effect for apps that target Android 17 or higher.

Update your build file

To update your target SDK version, open your module-level build.gradle or build.gradle.kts file, and update them with the following values for Wear OS 7 (Android 17):

android {
    compileSdk 37
    ...
    defaultConfig {
        targetSdk 37
    }
}

android {
    compileSdk = 37
    ...
    defaultConfig {
        targetSdk = 37
    }
}