Find people is rolling out on Wear OS, but it’s not for finding people

Google’s new Discover folks function for Put on OS appears fairly restricted at first look. You possibly can’t use your watch to start out sharing your location, and you may’t pull up a map exhibiting the place another person is. However that’s as a result of the function doesn’t actually appear supposed to work each methods. Its extra helpful job is letting different folks preserve monitor of you when your cellphone isn’t round.

As 9to5Google noticed, Discover folks is now showing on Put on OS as a part of Discover Hub, and the watch app handles a lot of the setup elsewhere. For those who haven’t already configured location sharing, it can merely present an “Open on cellphone” button. When you begin sharing your location with somebody by means of Discover Hub in your cellphone, that particular person then seems on the watch underneath “Can see your location,” together with how lengthy the sharing session will final. This makes use of Google’s present Location Sharing system, the identical underlying setup when folks monitoring arrived in Discover My Gadget.

However the handiest bit is what occurs you probably have an LTE watch and depart your cellphone behind. The watch can proceed sharing your location utilizing its personal GPS, so the particular person you’ve already shared with can nonetheless see the place you’re. Going out for a run with out lugging your cellphone alongside is an apparent instance.

That additionally helps clarify why Discover folks feels so stripped again on the watch. It isn’t making an attempt to show your wrist right into a miniature model of Discover Hub the place each folks can monitor one another. If you wish to see the opposite particular person’s location, the watch sends you again to your cellphone. On Put on OS, the main focus is far more on holding your personal location out there to the folks you’ve already chosen.

There’s additionally a Location Sharing management on the watch. Turning it on for the primary time brings up explanatory screens about how the system works, whereas turning it off stops that watch from sharing your location throughout Google apps. Google additionally makes clear that merely revoking location permission from Discover folks gained’t cease Location Sharing from the machine.