Summary
- Google Wallet now holds more than just bank and credit cards, storing tickets, IDs, passports, and more.
- For this reason, additional security measures have been added.
- A recent bug on Wear OS started prompting for a PIN/password for every Google Wallet transaction, which has now been fixed.
Over the past year, we’ve seen Google Wallet evolve to handle more than just bank and credit cards. The app can now safely store tickets, bus passes, airline tickets, and even state IDs and passports. As such, we’ve seen Google add more layers of security to the app, requiring users to re-verify their PIN or password before making any substantial transactions.
While this keeps users safe, as you can imagine, it doesn’t create the smoothest interaction for users. And some Wear OS users were even prompted to re-enter their PIN or password every single time they wanted to check out, regardless if they were authenticated after recently unlocking their device. Luckily, that was just a bug and has now been fixed according to 9to5Google.
Safe but no longer annoying
If you have never seen this issue with your Wear OS device, consider yourself lucky. As far as what was occurring, well, Google was requiring users to enter their PIN or password for every Google Wallet transaction on Wear OS, regardless of whether the wearable had been recently unlocked or not.
While some can appreciate the “added” security of being prompted every single time, this isn’t proper behavior. While Wear OS should prompt you for such details when there’s been some time between authentication on the user’s side, once a user straps a Wear OS device to their wrist and unlocks it, it should remain unlocked for the duration it is worn.
That means that it shouldn’t prompt for a PIN or password for every transaction. Luckily, as stated before, this issue has now been fixed for those that were affected. If you were someone experiencing this issue, it should automatically resolve itself, but we recommend checking for any updates that might be available on your phone or watch.
Of course, if you want to get a preview of what’s to come, you can always try out the Wear OS 6 Developer Preview, which will give you an early look at Material 3 Expressive. The latest update is pretty exciting, and will also provide access to dynamic themes, providing a pop of needed color to your compatible smartwatch.
With that said, this isn’t quite available to the public yet, and can only be experienced by enrolling in the Developer Preview at this time. But it should arrive before the end of the year. So if you’re interested, be sure to keep an eye out because exciting things are coming.
