Motorola Moto 360 2nd Gen 2015 DSC09996

Marshmallow begins rolling out for the Moto 360 2nd Gen

Yesterday, Google announced that the long awaited Marshmallow update was finally ready for Android Wear devices. A few of them anyway. As we’ve seen with most major Android Wear updates, Google debuts the updates on select devices first, allowing other OEMs to push it to their devices at their own discretion. The update awoke dormant hardware, like speaker support for the few smartwatches that actually had them: the Huawei Watch and ASUS Zenwatch 2.

Now officially on the list is Motorola, who updated their support page with release notes (changelog) on the incoming Marshmallow update for the Motorola Moto 360 2015. But it’s not only new Android Wear-specific features like gestures that are being added, but software features you think you’d only find on Android smartphones, like Doze. Just like your smartphone, Doze will automatically put the Moto 360 in a deep sleep state when your watch is not charging and not in use. So if you take it off and leave it on a dresser overnight, it should theoretically use up less battery.

Here’s the full changelog taken from their support page:

Support for new languages

Moto 360 now officially supports new language+country pairs, including:

These new languages will be listed in the language selector before you pair Moto 360 with your phone. If you’ve already paired it, then you can switch your phone language to one of these languages. Reminder: when Moto 360 pairs to the phone, the watch’s language is synced to the phone’s language.

Doze mode

Doze mode is a new smart feature that helps to preserve your watch’s battery life: it recognizes 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 optimize power.

Screen dimming to support battery

Helps to reduce the battery drain of your Moto 360 and gives you extra privacy by turning your watch’s screen off, or putting it in ambient mode if Always-on screen is on, when is not in use. To try it, remove your Moto 360 from the usual viewing orientation, for example, drop your wrist after interacting with your Moto 360.

App permissions

Now you have more control over what you share with your apps. With the new permissions model, you can modify the permissions granted to apps at any time from the settings menu.

To modify permissions for an app:

Moto Body Running

Track your indoor run with Moto Body. The new running app for Moto 360 (2nd gen) records your time, pace, distance and heart rate during your indoor workout. You can even sync your performance data with other fitness apps like Strava, MapMyRun®, Under Armour Record™ and Fitbit™.

New wrist gestures

Your Moto 360 has new wrist gestures to help you navigate through screens:

Follow the tutorial on the watch to see how these new gestures work and get some practice. To launch the gesture tutorial:

Date & Time

You can now manually set the date, time and time zone of your Moto 360, independently of your phone’s settings. Try it:

Bluetooth headset audio improvements

We have introduced improvements that reduce the choppy audio when listening music through a Bluetooth headset while your watch is in motion, like when you are walking or working out.

Performance improvements

Bug Fixes

A variety of system optimizations to improve performance and stability.

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