Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Android 17 is introducing a new “Metric Style” notification template for Live Updates, expanding the feature to health, fitness, timers, and travel apps.
- The template allows apps to showcase up to three distinct data points simultaneously across the Always-On Display, lock screen, and status bar.
- The notification layout dynamically changes based on the device’s state, shifting between glanceable values, an expanded side-by-side view, and a single-line collapsed view.
Android 16 introduced progress-centric notifications, a new type of notification that displayed progress and milestones in ride-sharing and food-delivery apps. Android 16 QPR1 for Pixels upgraded this to the full Live Updates experience by adding them to the Always On Display, the lock screen, the heads-up display, and as a chip in the status bar. Google has further upgrades coming to Live Updates with Android 17, with a new “Metric Style” notifications template that expands Live Updates to health and fitness apps, timers, and travel app use cases.
The new Metric Style notifications template for Live Updates allows apps to showcase up to three distinct data points simultaneously across the Always-On Display, lock screen, and status bar. These are intended for apps that require continuous, multi-variable tracking. The Metric Style notifications template differs from the Progress Style notifications template used for milestone-centric apps like food delivery or ride-sharing, as it shifts the focus to real-time raw data.
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Android 17 will dynamically change how the three metrics are displayed depending on the device’s state.
The Live Update and Always-On Display view will favor the metric value to make it glanceable. The Expanded View notification displays each metric side-by-side, giving equal horizontal space to them, and allows three contextual action buttons. The Collapsed View notification concatenates the metrics into a single line, omits the units, and optionally displays the second and third metrics if they can fit entirely on the screen.
By standardizing Metric Style notifications through the template, Android 17 provides app developers with a reliable framework to display critical data directly on the lock screen and in a dedicated status bar chip.
The Timer app here is using the Metric Style notification template to display Live Updates on the lock screen
Google hasn’t confirmed whether the Metric Style notification template is part of the first stable Android 17 update or will be delivered via a QPR release. We’ll keep you updated when we learn more.
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