Google’s Pixel Watch has loads of good issues goin’ for it. However one a part of the Wear OS software program that is still decidedly meh is its system calendar integration.
It is a irritating limitation not only for the Pixel Watch however for Wear OS on the entire and nearly any related gadget. Considerably shockingly, for a corporation that claims Google Calendar as one among its hottest and necessary productiveness merchandise, Google has but to grace its wearable working system with any significant agenda-interacting interfaces.
Now, certain, you possibly can all the time test in on upcoming occasions or make appointments in your watch via voice command — however attempt to add an precise calendar tile into your watch’s swipeable mixture of at-a-glance data panels, and your solely actual choice is one thing like this:
Do not get me incorrect: That is fantastic. It is purposeful, if barely so. However it’s missing in oh-so-many methods, together with any extra info-dense agenda viewing choice together with any precise occasion modifying capabilities.
Effectively, my fellow Wear watchers, I’ve bought simply the reply for you. It is a freshly upgraded model of my favourite third-party Android calendar app that introduces full Wear OS help for a dramatically improved smartwatch calendar expertise — on the Google Pixel Watch or another Wear OS machine you’ve got bought strapped to your branches.
Prepared for a better smartwatch setup?
Your Pixel Watch/Wear OS calendar improve
All proper: In the event you’ve been loitering ‘spherical these elements for lengthy, you’ve got most likely heard me discuss this app earlier than — however actually not in this particular context.
The app known as Business Calendar 2 Planner. And if you happen to can forgive that mouthful of a reputation, my goodness, are you in for a deal with.
[Psst: Got a Pixel phone? Come check out my free Pixel Academy e-course. You’ll learn all sorts of hidden tricks for that side of your tech setup!]
Enterprise Calendar, as we’ll name it for brief, simply completed rolling out a meaty improve that expands its attain into the Wear OS area. The result’s a a lot extra helpful Wear OS calendar setup — one which’s extra in step with what you’d count on from a Googley productiveness gadget.
Simply install the Business Calendar app onto your Android cellphone, then search for the little downward-facing arrow inside its Play Retailer Set up button so as to add the newly current companion app onto your Pixel Watch (or no matter Wear OS mannequin you’ve got bought) proper after.
As soon as that is executed, you will see two important additions. First is a brand new Enterprise Calendar Agenda tile for Wear OS that is infinitely extra helpful than the usual Wear OS Calendar tile Google offers you by default.
In contrast to Google’s inventory choice, this tile reveals you quite a few upcoming occasions in your agenda at a single look — and it is absolutely interactive, too: You possibly can faucet any occasion inside it to open the occasion in a properly designed full-screen interface. That each permits you to see all of the occasion’s particulars and offers you straightforward one-tap choices for rescheduling or deleting the occasion proper then and there.
On high of that, the tile has a useful button at its backside edge that pulls up an infinite-scrolling view of your whole calendar agenda — thoughtfully designed for the Pixel Watch’s round kind and able to adapt to another Wear OS smartwatch setup as properly.
Along with making it as straightforward as could be to search out and flick through your whole agenda, that very same view offers you easy one-tap choices for including new occasions into your calendar — all by way of intuitive plain-English voice instructions, like:
- Assembly subsequent Friday at 8 a.m.
- Skilled dance coaching on February ninth from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
- Intensive bodily remedy from February tenth to February twelfth
There’s extra, too: Your spiffy new Wear OS calendar tile contains the choice to modify over to a completely interactive month-to-month view, in case you ever must zoom out and achieve some broader perspective.
Tapping on any particular person day inside that view, in the meantime, zooms you straight into your agenda for that particular date. Not unhealthy, proper?!
And bear in mind: All of that is simply the primary a part of what Enterprise Calendar brings to your Google-powered wrist companion.
Your new Wear OS ‘Subsequent Occasion’ view
Enterprise Calendar’s second important addition is a extra narrowly targeted Subsequent Occasion tile in your Pixel Watch or different Wear OS gadget. That tile, as its title suggests, reveals you solely data for the subsequent occasion in your agenda.
However in contrast to Google’s built-in Wear OS equal, this tile enables you to faucet on that occasion to zip over to a completely featured data viewing and modifying interface, identical to we noticed in that different view a second in the past. And it has one-tap buttons for switching over to the complete agenda display screen or the month-to-month setup, too.
All in all, it is an improve that is powerful to show down, when you understand it is accessible. And as soon as you’ve got bought the app put in, it will take you all of 20 seconds to get issues up and working in your watch.
20 seconds to a greater Wear OS calendar
No exaggeration: Getting the Enterprise Calendar tiles into your Wear OS watch interface is as straightforward as opening up the companion watch management app in your cellphone after which discovering the tile-adding choice.
With the Pixel Watch, as an example, you’d search for the aptly named Watch app on no matter Android machine you’ve got bought related. Open it, then faucet the “Tiles” choice inside its major display screen and faucet “Add tile” on the display screen that comes up subsequent.
So long as you’ve got bought the Enterprise Calendar app put in each in your cellphone and on the watch itself, you must see the “Agenda: Enterprise Calendar” and “Subsequent Occasion: Enterprise Calendar” tiles within the record of accessible choices.
Faucet both one — or each, if you happen to’re feelin’ particularly feisty — then again out one step to the primary tile configuration space.
There, you possibly can contact your finger to these freshly added tiles and drag up or down to maneuver ’em wherever you need within the record. In the event you put ’em on the high, they’re going to be the very first thing that reveals up whenever you swipe towards the proper on your Pixel Watch watch face. On the backside, they’re going to come up first with a swipe towards the left.
The precise steps might differ a bit with the companion apps for different Wear OS watches, however the identical primary logic ought to apply. And that is all there’s to it.
Enterprise Calendar 2 is free to make use of with an elective $7 Professional improve that removes advertisements from the app’s cellphone interface and unlocks sure superior options (and if you happen to’re a member of my Android Intelligence Platinum resource community, by the best way, do not forget that you have a free lifetime improve to that Professional model prepared and ready as a part of your Platinum Perk Pack!).
The app will mechanically sync with Google Calendar, Outlook calendar, or another calendar supplier you’ve got bought current in your cellphone. And newly added Wear OS benefits apart, it is a spectacular step up from the inventory calendar setup on Android itself in addition to ChromeOS — all as a part of the identical single app and elective Professional buy.
In the event you lean in your calendar as typically as I do, it will be one of the crucial consequential productiveness upgrades you ever give your self — on Wear OS and past.
Hungry for much more Googley data? Sign up for my free weekly newsletter to get next-level suggestions delivered on to your inbox each Friday.
Copyright © 2023 IDG Communications, Inc.