Android 12 is going to make it easier to stop useless notifications on your Wear OS smartwatch
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One of the smaller but more interesting changes spotted in Android 12 Developer Preview 3 is a new level of granular control over apps that can access the notification listener service. In Android 11, it's an all-or-nothing switch: either a helper app (like Android Wear, Android Auto, or Fitbit) can access all your notification data, or it can't. Starting with A12 DP3, things are a little more subtle.
The new version of this Settings screen (Apps & Notifications>Special App Access>Notification access in A11, Notifications>Device & app notifications in A12) used to have just one toggle for all notifications. Now it breaks them down into four groups: real-time, conversations, default, and silent. The last two are self-explanatory, basic alerts for info and alerts that don't trigger a full visual and audio alert, respectively. Real-time notifications are for ongoing events, such as phone calls or music controls. Conversations are texts, emails, or anything that's information coming from a specific human.