Google today announced that it is already working on an API that would allow developers to seamlessly create custom watch faces for Android Wear powered smartwatches.

Right now, while users can sideload watch faces from the Play Store, they don’t work properly or lead to one or the other issue because of the lack of an official API. 

According to Google Developer Wayne Piekarski, the company is already working on an API for custom watch faces, which should make the lives of developers easier. Until then, he recommends them to not release custom watch faces on the Play Store and use the beta channel for testing purposes.

While the team is already working on making simple tools that will make it easy for custom watch faces to adopt to different form factors and conserve battery life, some of these changes won’t arrive until Android Wear is migrated to Android L, which is bound to happen later this year.

For the sake of Android Wear’s ecosystem, it is better if developers hold off on releasing their custom watch faces for now. This is because the current method might not work with the future release of Android Wear, thereby leading to fragmentation and frustration for end users.

• SourceWayne Piekarski