Android Wear developers will soon be able to create customised designs for smartwatches that run on Google’s OS.
Google says it will soon be releasing an official application programming interface (API) that will enable developers to create third-party watch face designs for Android Wear devices.
In a recent post on Google+, an Android Wear developer named Wayne Piekarski revealed that custom watch faces is one of the most requested features for the new wearables.
Developers can already create their own Android Wear watch face designs with a bit of tweaking, according to Piekarski.
However, most devs hold back their designs until the official API is released in order to ensure compatibility with future versions of Android Wear.
“Customisation has helped Android thrive, and the same will be true for Android Wear,” Piekarski said.
“We are working to make this as simple as possible for you so that it’s easy to make good-looking faces that work well across multiple form factors, conserve battery, and display the user’s card stream nicely.”
Although there has been no official word on the release date of the API, Piekarski did state that its features likely won’t be available until Android Wear us migrated to Android L – the newest version of the OS – “later this year”.
Android Wear smartwatch manufacturers have previously encouraged developers to create their own custom designs for the devices. Most notably, Motorola held a design competition recently for its upcoming Moto 360 smartwatch – with the winning face announced last month.