With Samsung ditching Tizen, here's when your Galaxy Watch still stop receiving updates
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:
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.
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Ara Wagoner was a staff writer at Android Central. She themes phones and pokes YouTube Music with a stick. When she's not writing about cases, Chromebooks, or customization, she's wandering around Walt Disney World. If you see her without headphones, RUN. You can follow her on Twitter at @arawagco.