In a recent update, Google Wallet for Wear OS has expanded its capabilities to include support for airline boarding passes. This comes after the addition of loyalty card support back in December.
Your Wear OS 3+ device will now display a new notification from the Google Wallet app on your smartwatch. This notification will inform you about your boarding pass for the flight to any airport with an option to tap on it to “View pass” and thus access the QR code for easy gate scanning.
This much-needed addition greatly enhances the functionality of Google Wallet for Wear OS, allowing it to integrate with a broader range of phone features seamlessly. When Google introduced loyalty card support in December, it was initially limited to basic membership programs and other types of passes. Unfortunately, excluded from the list were COVID cards, health insurance cards, and private passes.
Some users have reported seeing this feature already available on the Pixel Watch 2, while original Pixel Watch users are still waiting for the update, which appears to be server-side. However, as this was not a feature that was announced as a Pixel Watch 2 exclusive, there shouldn’t be any reason why the original Google Pixel Watch wouldn’t receive it.
The support documentation for Google Wallet also includes information on how to find your passes on your smartwatch’s Wallet app, and even includes troubleshooting info should you not be able to find the option to add your boarding pass to your watch. The documentation states that passes are automatically added across all of your synced devices, but your watch must be running Wear OS 3.5 or newer and the Google Wallet app on the watch must be version 23.46.x or above. Additionally, it is stated that Fitbit devices aren’t supported.