Android Wear 1.4 Update Brings 'Doze' Battery Saving Feature

Google last week detailed its Marshmallow update for the Android Wear operating system but seems to have missed one feature, Doze for the smartwatches. The update changelog by Google last week mentioned battery life improvements but failed to reveal anything about the inclusion of the Doze feature.

In the meantime however, v1.4 update release notes by Motorola for its new Moto 360 smartwatch reveal an Android 6.0 Marshmallow feature for smartphones has come to the wearable platform - Doze. It will improve the battery life on wearables like it does for handsets. The release note say that Doze "recognises when your Moto 360 is idle and automatically goes into a deep sleep state. How does it work? When your watch is not charging and not in use, Doze mode shuts down unnecessary background processes to optimise power."

The Android v1.4 update is based on API 23 and Android 6.0 Marshmallow, iterating over API 22. Wayne Piekarski, a Senior Developer Advocate at Google (Android), in a recent Google+ post said the update will be rolling out to all the Android Wear devices "over the next few weeks." It will also be reaching Casio Smart Outdoor Watch and Huawei Watch for Ladies.

Android Wear v1.4 will let users play sounds and take calls right from the smartwatch (for those watches with speakers) and allow users to type out and dictate messages on WhatsApp, WeChat, Viber and other instant messaging clients, amongst other changes. The update also supports six new languages -namely, Mandarin, Cantonese, Indonesian, Polish, Dutch, and Thai. More details, can be found on the company's Android Developer's blog post.

The update also brings the ability to expand a card, bring up apps, and return to the watch face with a push, lift or shake gestures.