Google Clock has finally picked up support for Android’s Live Updates, so a running timer or stopwatch now shows as a proper live element in the status bar, on the lock screen and on the always-on display instead of a static notification. The change is arriving with Google Clock v9.0, and it fixes one long-standing annoyance along the way: timers on the AOD now actually count down in real time.
What Live Updates changes in Google Clock
Live Updates is the Android notification format Google introduced for ongoing, time-sensitive activities — deliveries, rides, workouts, navigation — that surface as a persistent, self-refreshing element rather than a normal notification you have to pull down to read. Android 17 extended the format to cover timers among other categories.
Google’s own Clock app was, oddly, one of the last holdouts. Per Android Authority, which spotted and tested the rollout, leaving the app with a timer or stopwatch running now puts a highlighted icon in the status bar; tapping it opens an expanded Live Updates view with playback controls. Previously you got a plain status-bar icon, a basic notification with controls, or the running counter in the At A Glance widget. The Live Update now also appears on the lock screen and the always-on display.
The AOD fix is the quietly useful part. Timers on the always-on display did not refresh before, so a countdown would sit there looking frozen even though it was running normally in the background — the kind of small bug that makes you unlock the phone to check something you put on the AOD precisely so you would not have to.
How to get it, and why you may not have it yet
- Open the Play Store and update Clock (com.google.android.deskclock) to v9.0 or later.
- Start a timer or stopwatch, then leave the app.
- Check the status bar for the highlighted icon, and tap it to expand the Live Update.
The catch: this is a server-side rollout, so installing v9.0 does not by itself guarantee the feature appears. Android Authority reports getting it working on a device running Android 17 QPR2 Beta 1 and expects it to be available on stable Android 17 as well — that expectation is the outlet’s, not a Google statement. We found no Google announcement accompanying the change, so there is no official device list, region list or completion date to point to — this is a rollout being observed in the wild rather than documented.
If your Clock app is already on v9.0 and the old-style notification is still what you see, there is nothing to toggle. Server-side flags land when they land.
Sources: Android Authority
