Lots of folks are excited about the new unified platform that is a fusion of Samsung’s Tizen OS and Wear OS. Since the operating system was announced back in May during Google I/O 2021, its official name has been kept under wraps until today.
A post published earlier today by Google has revealed that the unified platform will be officially known as Wear OS 3.0. It also revealed that the new version of the OS will be available as a system update to previous generation of smartwatches though that list is very limited.
Google says that the update will bring lots of new experiences and that the extent of these changes will require that users reset their watch to factory settings. Based on the aforementioned reason, Google says that it expects some users may not want to update to Wear OS 3, so it will make the upgrade available to users of eligible devices on an opt-in basis. Unfortunately, Google says that the update should begin to roll out “starting in mid to second half of 2022.”
The list of eligible devices is pretty short and includes Mobvoi’s TicWatch Pro 3 GPS, TicWatch Pro 3 LTE, TicWatch E3, and other upcoming TicWatch devices. It also includes Fossil’s next-gen smartwatches coming later this year. In a nutshell, the supported devices are those powered by the Snapdragon Wear 4100.
Also, save for the Samsung Galaxy Watch4 series and the Pixel Watch, other smartwatches will most likely launch with the old version of Wear OS until the OS upgrade is available next year.
Google concludes by saying that older watches that can’t be upgraded will receive new features too such as Gboard and the revamped Play Store.
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