Future Wear OS Devices Will Accommodate Left-handers

Google is (sort of) giving left-handed smartwatch users what they've been asking for since 2018: the ability to rotate the screen orientation 180 degrees.

A post was made in Google's Issue Tracker, asking for a way to flip the UI for a Wear OS smartwatch upside-down so lefties could comfortably wear the watch on their right wrist. Now, just shy of four years later, Google has marked the issue as "resolved" with the statement: "Our development team has implemented the feature you have requested and will be available on future new devices."

It's the "future new devices" part that's ended up frustrating users—perhaps more than they were before. With no mention of an update coming to current Wear OS devices, it leaves them wondering if they'll have to buy a new smartwatch just to be able to flip the screen around.

"It's 2022, it's a watch, it's smart and if it's round it should be able to be rotated any direction at any preferred degree," a user named 'ta' pointed out in the Issue Tracker post, "... it should be standard built in to the main OS."

User 'ma' shared a similar sentiment, stating, "This is a simple feature that should be able to be implemented on older devices through a small patch."

As 9to5Google points out, smartwatches constantly move around, so the screen will likely have to be locked to a specific orientation via a menu toggle or something similar.

A precise date for when new devices will support a UI flip feature has not been given. Whether or not Google plans to address the left-handed issue on current Wear OS devices via a patch or update remains to be seen.