Original Huawei Watch finally gets Android Wear 2.0 update

Better late than never: Over the weekend, the original Huawei Watch, released in late 2015, finally started to receive its Android Wear 2.0 update. Three months after Wear 2.0 first debuted, the update is rolling out to both developer preview and stable channel Huawei Watch devices. If you were running the previous Wear 2.0 preview build, the final over-the-air update will factory reset your device.

To update, head to Settings > System > About > System updates. It's been reported on Reddit that anyone not seeing the update notification can try disabling Bluetooth on their phone, connecting their watch to Wifi and repeatedly tap the blue check mark until something happens. Alternatively, OTA packages are also available for manual flashing. (Lastly, you could also manually flash the Wear 2.0 developer preview and then take the OTA from there, if you're not seeing it on your Wear 1.5-running Huawei Watch — but that's a more involved process.)

So far the Android Wear 2.0 update appears to be a significant upgrade for the watch, bringing its performance and feature set in line with the Huawei Watch 2 (save for LTE connectivity and Android Pay support, of course). Performance is noticeably smoother throughout the software, and the Wear 2.0 experience is much better suited to a circular display. And there's also the much-hyped ability to directly install apps on the watch, and directly reply to messages through the built-in keyboard.

More: Android Wear 2.0 review

If you've got Wear 2.0 up and running on your Huawei Watch, be sure to let us know how you're getting on down in the comments!

Alex Dobie
Executive Editor

Alex was with Android Central for over a decade, producing written and video content for the site, and served as global Executive Editor from 2016 to 2022.