You can now show boarding passes with your Wear OS smartwatch

Google is steadily adding features to the Google Wallet app on both the Android and Wear OS platforms. The latest one adds support for airline boarding passes on Wear OS smartwatches, which is a first for Google Wallet. The feature was first spotted on a Pixel Watch 2 on Jan. 9 by 9to5Google, but has been confirmed by other Wear OS smartwatch users on Reddit as well. It should make it easier to show your boarding pass when you’re getting on a plane, eliminating the need to pull out your phone.

The feature is available on all Wear OS devices running Wear OS 3.5 or later. Like all feature rollouts, it may take some time for the feature to appear on your smartwatch. However, boarding passes appear to be showing on most Wear OS watches so far. After you add your boarding pass to your Google Wallet app on your phone, it should automatically show up on your watch. There will be a notification that reads “boarding pass for your flight to [airport]” in your notification center.

You can tap that notification, and press the “view pass” button to open up the boarding pass. Alternatively, you can go to the Google Wallet app on your smartphone manually. Either way, your Wear OS watch will pull up any boarding passes you have saved to Google Wallet. The pass will appear as a QR code that can be scanned at your departure gate.

Boarding passes aren’t the first transit cards to appear in Google Wallet, but they might be the most useful. The app also supports public transit cards in San Francisco, Washington D.C., and Toronto. Google Wallet will also work with OMNY, the service that accepts payments for New York City busses and subways, through any NFC payment card. In the future, Google has announced plans to add support for more transit systems in other cities, like Seattle.

What other passes work with Google Wallet?

Google Wallet can of course already store payment cards, like debit and credit cards. Just last month, it added support for store loyalty cards as well. The loyalty cards will appear in the Wallet app on Wear OS, just like new boarding passes. However, COVID vaccination cards, insurance cards, and other “private” passes won’t work. Boarding passes are the first private passes to appear on Wear OS.

The move comes as Google is working on expanding support for digital IDs in the Google Wallet to more states. The exact states aren’t known yet, but Google has said the expansion should come in the next few months.