Smartwatches running Wear OS now remind you to wash your hands

Frequently washing your hands is a key way of preventing the spread of COVID-19 (and many other diseases), but it's easy to forget to do it. Now, it gets a bit easier for owners of devices running Wear OS.

Android Police reports that, after a recent update, the Clock app for Wear OS now sends alerts to wash your hands every three hours. And when you react to the alert, the clock will display a 40-second timer, indicating how long your hand-washing session should last.

While this may be handy for some users, if you want to turn it off you can disable it altogether; just hold the notification down when you receive it.

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If you're not seeing this feature yet, try updating your Wear OS Clock app to version 5.4.0. I've tried it out on an old Huawei smartwatch and, after updating the Clock app on the watch, it worked as advertised.

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In March, Google also added a new command to its Assistant; if you say, "Hey Google, help me wash my hands," Assistant will play a little tune for 40 seconds. It's a nice gesture but getting a notification and a timer on a wearable device is vastly better — in fact, it may be the best new feature I've seen on Wear OS in a while.

COVID-19 has so far killed more than 119,000 and infected more than 1.8 million people. In the U.S., there have been more than 609,500 confirmed cases and 26,057 deaths.