Google has announced that Wear OS smartwatches will gain offline Google Maps support. This means you can sync maps to your wrist to get directions and information even when you don’t have a connected phone or internet connection available.
The new feature, announced via a blog postmeans that Google Maps on a watch can now function in a similar way to Google Maps on a phone or tablet: locally stored offline maps can be loaded when there is no internet connection.
This does mean you’ll miss out on real-time traffic information, but most of the standard Google Maps features are still available. For example, you can get walking directions from one place to another just as you normally would.
Google didn’t specify which watches this will work on, so we’re assuming it’s more modern Wear OS devices. It appears that some models, including the Pixel Watch 2, Pixel Watch 3, and Galaxy Watch 4, have already received the necessary update.
How to use offline maps
Once the update is installed on your Wear OS device, the next time you open Google Maps on your watch, you’ll see a message saying, “Offline maps on the phone will automatically download to the watch.”
It appears that a map for your home area (if you have a home location set) will automatically download to Wear OS, and maps you have saved via Google Maps for Android should also automatically sync to your wrist. In the app on your phone, tap your profile picture (top right), then tap Offline maps to begin with.
In the Google Maps for Wear OS menu, next to recent locations and a link to the app settings, there should be a new option Offline maps option. Tap this to see what is saved and to remove map regions if necessary.
The process for using the map should be more or less the same, with Google Maps falling back to using locally stored map tiles when necessary. It means Wear OS currently beats out the best Apple Watches in this regard, though more offline functionality is coming to Apple Maps on the Apple Watch with watchOS 11.