After you understand how to handle different watch shapes, decide which surface you want to use.
Common app layouts include the following:
- Single screen (simplest): UI elements are limited to what is visible at one time without scrolling.
- Vertical container (most common): content exists beyond the viewable portion of the screen and is accessible by scrolling.
- Other options: lists, paging, or 2D panning.
These layout types are described in the sections that follow. You can use a combination of layout types if you need multiple screens.
Note: For your activity, inherit from either a
ComponentActivity
or, if you use fragments, a FragmentActivity
.
The other activity types use mobile-specific UI elements that you don't need for Wear OS.
Single screen
The user sees all elements in a single screen without scrolling. This means you can include only a small number of elements.

Figure 1. An example of a single screen layout.
Single screens work well with a
BoxInsetLayout
in combination with a
ConstraintLayout
to arrange your elements.
A BoxInsetLayout
is a Wear OS UI widget that lets you define a single layout
that works for square, rectangular, and round screens. This class applies the required window
insets based on the screen shape and lets you easily align views in the center of the
screen.
If you prefer to create separate layouts to take advantage of each screen
shape, use
layout-round
and layout-notround
.
For more information, see
Use different layouts for square and round screens.
Vertical container
A vertical container is the most common type of app layout. Some content isn't visible on the screen, but it is accessible by scrolling.
Figure 2 shows several complete app layouts in which only a portion of the content can be seen on the circular screen of a watch. In these examples, the main content is in the top portion of the container, and other Critical User Journeys (CUJs) and settings are at the bottom. This is a best practice for laying out content.

Figure 2. Examples of vertical container layouts.
Unlike in a single screen app layout, don't use BoxInsetLayout
. Instead, use
a ConstraintLayout
inside a
NestedScrollView
.
Inside the ConstraintLayout
, place whatever widgets make the most sense for
your app. This lets you take advantage of the extra space on the sides of a circular display.

Figure 3. Content in a ConstraintLayout
inside a
NestedScrollView
.
Make sure the content at the top and bottom of your vertical container is small enough to fit in the top and bottom of a circular display, as in the example in figure 3.
Note:
When possible, add a scroll indicator to your NestedScrollView
by setting
android:scrollbars="vertical"
in the XML. This helps users identify that there is
more content available and helps them see where they are in relation to all the content.
Other options for app layouts
-
Lists: display large sets of data with the
WearableRecyclerView
widget optimized for Wearable surfaces. For more information, see Create lists on Wear OS. - Horizontal paging: for use cases with multiple sibling screens, use a horizontal swipe. If you use horizontal paging, you must support swipe-to-dismiss for the left edge.
- 2D Panning: for use cases like maps, users can drag to pan in different directions. Enable swipe-to-dismiss if your activity takes up the entire screen.