Android Wear Preview Program Overview

Welcome to the Android Wear 2.0 Developer Preview! This program gives you everything you need to get started with the next version of Android Wear. It’s free, and you can get started right away by downloading the Developer Preview resources.

Program Highlights

Timeline and Updates

The Android Wear 2.0 Developer Preview runs from 18 May 2016 until the final Android Wear public release to OEMs.

At key development milestones, we'll deliver updates for your development and testing environment. In general you can expect updates in approximately 6-week intervals. The release milestones are:

• Milestone 1 (initial release, alpha)
• Milestone 2 (incremental update, beta)
• Milestone 3 (incremental update, beta)
• Milestone 4 (final APIs and official SDK, Play publishing)
• Near-final system image
• Final release to OEMs

Each update includes an updated support library, preview system images, emulator, reference documentation, and API diffs.

The first three milestones provide an early test and development environment to help you identify compatibility issues in your current apps and plan migration or feature work needed to target the new platform. This is the priority period in which to give us your feedback on features and APIs and file compatibility issues — for all of these, please use the issue tracker. You can expect some API changes across these updates.

At milestone 4, you'll have access to the final Android Wear 2.0 APIs and SDK to develop with, as well as near-final system images to test system behaviors and features. Android Wear 2.0 will use the Android N API level at this time. You can begin final compatibility testing of your legacy apps and refine any new code that is using the Android Wear 2.0 APIs or features.

As you test and develop on Android Wear 2.0, we strongly recommend keeping your development environment up-to-date as updates are released.

We'll notify you when updates are available via the Android Developers Blog, as well as via this site and the Android Wear Developer Community on G+.

What's in the Android Wear 2.0 Developer Preview

The preview includes everything you need to test your existing apps on a variety of hardware configurations.

Developer resources

You can download these components through the SDK Manager in Android Studio. For more information, see Download and Test with a Device.

• Android Wear 2.0 Developer Preview SDK/support library
• Android Wear 2.0 Developer Preview emulator system image

We'll provide updates to these development tools at each milestone as needed.

Hardware system images

You can download these hardware system images from the Download and Test with a Device page:

• LGE Watch Urbane 2nd Edition
• Huawei Watch

To restore your device to its original state during the preview, you can flash the appropriate retail system image from the Download and Test with a Device page.

Please keep in mind that the preview system images are for app developers only, and for compatibility testing and early development only, and are not ready for day-to-day use.

Documentation and sample code

These documentation resources help you learn about the preview:

• Get Started has step-by-step instructions for setting up the SDK.
• Documentation of new APIs, including an API Overview, downloadable API Reference, and developer guides on key features such as complications and design patterns for Wear.
• Sample code that demonstrates how to implement complications and other new features.

Support Resources

Use these support resources as you test and develop on the Android Wear 2.0 Developer Preview:

• Wear Developer Preview Issue Tracker is your primary feedback channel. You can report bugs, performance issues, and general feedback through the issue tracker. You can also check for known issues and find workaround steps.
• The Wear Developer Community is a Google+ community where you can connect with other developers working with Android Wear. You can share observations or ideas or find answers to questions about Android Wear.