
Posted by John Zoeller – Developer Relations Engineer, and Caroline Vander Wilt – Group Product Supervisor
New Put on OS options allow ‘standalone’ watches for teenagers, unlocking new potentialities for Put on OS app builders
In collaboration with Samsung, Put on OS is introducing Galaxy Look ahead to Children, a brand new children expertise enabling children to discover whereas staying linked with their households from their smartwatch, no cellphone essential. This launch unlocks new alternatives for Put on OS builders to succeed in youthful audiences.
Galaxy Look ahead to Children is rolling out to Galaxy Watch7 LTE fashions , with options together with:
- No cellphone possession required: This expertise allows the watch and its related apps to function on a totally standalone foundation utilizing LTE, and when accessible, Wifi connectivity. This contains calling, texting, video games, and extra.
- Choice of kid-friendly apps: From gaming to well being, children can browse and request installs of Instructor Accredited apps and watch faces onGoogle Play. Along with approving and blocking apps, mother and father may also monitor app utilization from Google Household Hyperlink.
- Keep in contact with parent-managed contacts: Mother and father can guarantee safer communications by limiting textual content and calling to authorised contacts.
- Location sharing: Gives peace of thoughts with location sharing and geofencing notifications when children go away or arrive at designated areas.
- College time: Limits watch performance throughout scheduled hours of the day, so children can focus whereas at school or learning.
Constructing children experiences with standalone performance lets you attain each standalone and tethered watches for teenagers. Apps like Math Tango have already created nice Put on OS experiences for teenagers. Take a look at the video under to find out how they constructed a wealthy and fascinating Put on OS app.
Our new kids-focused design and content material ideas and developer steering are additionally accessible as we speak. Take a look at a number of the highlights within the subsequent part.
New ideas and pointers for growth
We have created new design ideas and pointers to assist builders make the most of this chance to construct and enhance apps and watch faces for teenagers.
Design precept: Energetic and enjoyable
Construct participating wholesome experiences for kids by together with activity-based options.
An excellent instance of that is the Odd Squad Time Unit app from PBS KIDS that encourages kids to stand up and be bodily lively. Through the use of the on-device sensors and power-efficient platform APIs, the app is ready to present a enjoyable expertise all day and nonetheless keep battery lifetime of the watch from wakeup to mattress time.

Notice that whereas experiences needs to be catered to children, they need to additionally comply with the Put on OS high quality necessities associated to the visible expertise of your app, particularly when crafting contact targets and font sizes.
Content material precept: Thoughtfully crafted
Think about adjusting your content material to make it not solely acceptable, but in addition consumable and intuitive for youthful children (together with these as younger as 6). This contains each audio and visible app parts.
Tinkercast’s Two Whats?! And a Wow! app makes use of age-appropriate vocabulary and enjoyable characters to help of their educating. It’s an excellent instance of how a developer ought to account for studying comprehension.

Growth pointers
New Put on OS children apps should adhere to the Put on OS app high quality pointers, the rules for standalone apps, and the brand new Children growth information.
Reduce affect on gadget battery
Reduce occasions that have an effect on battery life over the course of 1 session. Children use watches that present vital security options for his or her mother and father or guardians, which depend upon the gadget having sufficient battery life. Beneath are greatest practices for lowering battery affect.
✅ DO design for offline use instances so that youngsters can play with out incurring network-related battery prices
Select a growth atmosphere
To develop kid-friendly apps and video games you should use Compose for Put on OS, our beneficial strategy for constructing UI for Put on OS, in addition to Unity for Android.
We suggest Unity for growing video games on Put on OS if you happen to’re acquainted and cozy with its workflows and capabilities. Nonetheless, for video games with only some animations, Compose Animation needs to be adequate and is best supported inside the Android atmosphere.
You should definitely contemplate that some Put on OS high quality necessities might require customized Unity implementations, similar to assist for Rotary Enter.
Originator’s MathTango showcases the pliability and richness of growing with Unity:

Creating Watch Faces
Creating watch faces for teenagers requires using Watch Face Format. Watch faces ought to adhere to our content material and design ideas talked about above, in addition to our high quality requirements, together with our ambient mode requirement.
The next examples display our Content material Precept: Interesting. The content material is related, participating, and enjoyable for teenagers, sparking their curiosity and creativeness.
The Crayola Pets Watch Face comes with an excellent number of customization choices, and demonstrates an informative and nice watch face:

The Marvel Watch Faces (Captain America proven) present a enjoyable and helpful step monitoring characteristic:

Children expertise publishing necessities
Builders seeking to get began on a brand new children expertise might want to maintain a couple of issues in thoughts when publishing on the Play Retailer.
- Age and Content material Ranking: Children apps needs to be configured within the Play Retailer to fulfill the age and content material necessities acceptable to their performance
- Utilizing Watch Face Format: Solely watch faces that are constructed with Watch Face Format can be made accessible for teenagers
Develop your attain with Put on OS
Prepare to succeed in a brand new era of Put on OS customers! We have created all-new pointers that will help you construct participating experiences for teenagers. Right here’s a fast recap:
- Deal with enrichment and age-tailoring
- Be sure that it really works with Standalone, and keep watch over the battery
With the Put on for Children expertise, builders can attain a wholly new viewers of customers and be a part of the subsequent era of studying and enrichment on Put on OS.
Take a look at the entire new experiences on the Play Retailer!