What you need to know
- As part of Samsung's announcement of moving to Wear OS, it re-affirmed its support for current Tizen watches.
- Samsung has promised at least three years of support life for existing Galaxy Watches and Galaxy Watch Actives.
Today's news about Samsung joining Wear OS is a long time coming, and while this could mean the beginning of a beautiful wearable friendship, it also marks the end of an era for Samsung smartwatches and for Tizen. While there is still a lot we don't know about how Wear OS will actually perform on the Galaxy Watch 4, we now know why some Galaxy Watch and Watch active users will have a little more incentive to upgrade:
"At Samsung, we always put customers at the heart of everything we do. That's why we are committed to bringing them the best possible smartwatch experiences. For customers who already own the Tizen OS-based Galaxy smartwatches, we are continuing to provide at least three years of software support after the product launch."
This came from Samsung's statement on today's partnership with Google on wearables, and from that statement, we can infer an expected end-of-life date for each of the Galaxy Watches:
| Watch Name | Launch date | Miminmum months remaining |
|---|---|---|
| Samsung Galaxy Watch | August 24, 2018 | 3 months |
| Samsung Galaxy Watch Active | March 8, 2019 | 10 months |
| Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 | September 27, 2019 | 16 months |
| Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 | August 6, 2020 | 27 months |
The original Galaxy Watch is getting a bit long in the tooth, but I still wear a Galaxy Watch Active most days. given the words "at least" in Samsung's guidance here and the fact that the Galaxy Watch 1 and 2 are very similar, I could see the first gen being supported as long as the second gen. Meanwhile, the Galaxy Watch 3 has most of its three-year support life ahead of it, and no, Samsung has confirmed that the Galaxy Watch 3 will not be updated to Wear OS.
Are you happy to see three years of support for your Galaxy Watch model? Were you expecting more considering how long-lived most Samsung smartwatches have been? Can't wait for August to get your hands on the first Wear OS-powered Galaxy Watches? Me, too! Let us know in the comments.
