Google Camera for Wear OS gets Material You redesign

Google lets Pixel owners remote control their camera from a watch. Google Camera 8.6 is now rolling out to Wear OS with a Material You redesign.

Before today’s update (on version 8.1), Google Camera’s design dated back to the era of original Wear OS — if not Android Wear — apps. Namely, additional controls were housed in a bottom sheet that you tap or swipe up on.

Following the redesign, there is now a hamburger button housed in a pill at the very top. Tapping lets you flip between the front and rear-facing camera or enable the “3 Sec” timer – this page adopts the latest Wear OS design guidance for a simple list.

The shutter button, which now takes after the current phone design, is now helpfully at the bottom of the screen instead of the center, thus no longer obscuring the subject. Like before, Google Camera will briefly note your current mode upon switching.

Google Camera 8.6

Zoom controls are at the right, but the drag handle is currently labeled “Infinity” in a manner that is too large for the white circle. This will presumably be resolved in a future update, while the live previews look blurrier than before in a quick comparison.

Version 8.6.263.463689965.13 of Google Camera with a Material You revamp is widely rolling out this morning on Wear OS via the Play Store.

There’s also a minor update to the phone counterpart today. Released last month for Android 13 phones, version 8.6 brings Material You tweaks and Speech enhancement for the rear Pixel 6 and 6 Pro camera.

Google Camera 8.1

More on Google Camera:

• Google Camera ‘temporarily disabled’ Frequent Faces on the Pixel
• Likely camera sensors for Pixel 7, 7 Pro, and Pixel tablet uncovered in code
• Google’s Pixel foldable rumored to skip camera cutout on inner display, adopt Pixel 7 design
• Lightweight ‘Camera Go’ app renamed to ‘Camera from Google’