Update (June 2, 10:00 AM ET): Samsung has started rolling out the first One UI Watch beta for the Galaxy Watch 4.
What you need to know
- Samsung will be opening its first One UI Watch beta program for Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic owners.
- The program is set to begin on June 2 and will be available through the Samsung Members app.
- It’s unknown whether this program will be available in regions outside of South Korea.
Over the past few years, Samsung has made it possible for its users to test out upcoming software updates ahead of their final release. This gives the company a testing bed outside of the traditional internal testing methods, putting software into the hands of more users. The obvious goal of doing so is to try to find and squash any bugs that might have been missed.
It seems that Samsung is ready to expand its beta testing beyond the best Android phones as the company has announced a One UI Watch beta program. According to the Samsung Community forum post (via TizenHelp), the program is set to kick off starting on June 2 in Samsung’s home country of South Korea and will be available to owners of the Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic.
Signing up for the beta program won’t be too dissimilar from the previous One UI betas for phones like the Galaxy S21. You’ll need to have the Samsung Members app downloaded, and will need to be logged in with your Samsung account. Once the beta signup page goes live, you’ll just need to open the app, tap the appropriate slider, and then follow the on-screen steps.
Samsung doesn’t provide any information as to whether the One UI Watch beta program will be available in other regions. However, we wouldn’t be surprised to see it made available in more places at some point. Samsung wants to get its next version of Wear OS into the hands of as many users as possible in order to squash any potential bugs that may arise.
Just yesterday, Google Assistant finally arrived for Galaxy Watch 4 owners, finally allowing you to ditch Bixby for good. And following Google’s Pixel Watch teaser at I/O 2022, perhaps we’re in store for another major update to the Wear OS 3 platform that won’t be available until later this year.
Update
Right on cue, Samsung has started rolling out the first One UI Watch 4.5 beta to those who have joined the beta program. According to the release notes, this update includes changes to the keyboard, along with support for dual SIM functionality and even a few new watch faces. This release carries a version number of R8**XXU1ZVE7 and weighs in at around 796.95MB, so you'll want to be connected to Wi-Fi throughout the installation process.
Samsung's keyboard app also gains some long-overdue features, such as an all-new QWERTY keyboard layout. Until now, you would have to switch over to another keyboard like Gboard if you wanted to just swipe across the letters as opposed to using your voice or a T9 keyboard.
Once you have enrolled in the beta program, you'll need to make sure that you have the new Watch and Samsung Health installed on your device. Otherwise, you might run into some complications when it comes to keeping your Galaxy Watch 4 paired with your Samsung phone.
New software incoming
The Galaxy Watch 4 remains the only smartwatch equipped with Wear OS 3. But there's a new One UI Watch beta program on the way that should bring some new features and changes.
