Google brings Gboard keyboard to Wear OS

Google has made its Gboard keyboard available for Wear OS. The Input and Speech app is Google’s first addition to the wearables operating system in years.

Users can use Gboard on wearables for voice input, swipe gestures and the QWERTY keyboard, reports Google’s Wear OS team. In addition, the app offers suggestions and improvements of input and there is support for several languages. Gboard will be available in all languages ​​that Wear OS also supports.

Wear OS already had text input via swipe gestures and suggestions, but not under the Gboard name, and the new app offers a changed look and more functionality. The update should be available in the coming days. In addition, Google promises that more announcements for Wear OS will follow this year.

That could happen, for example, at Google I/O 2021, the company’s event that takes place from May 19 to 20. It’s the first time in years that Google has added a new app to its OS for wearables, and the text input hasn’t changed since the release of Android Wear 2.0 five years ago.