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Samsung has two new Galaxy smartwatches in development and they may be running Wear OS

This year's Galaxy Watch may be running Wear OS, not Tizen. (Image source: Samsung)
This year's Galaxy Watch may be running Wear OS, not Tizen. (Image source: Samsung)
According to a new report, Samsung has two new Galaxy smartwatches in development, model numbers SM-R86x and SM-R87x. These smartwatches may be Samsung's first to run Android since 2013, with a pivot to Wear OS apparently on the cards, too.

According to the ever well-informed Ice Universe, Samsung plans to move away from its Tizen smartwatch OS. Surprisingly, the South Korean company apparently will switch to Wear OS, which remains on Android 9.0 Pie. An Android 11 update for Wear OS is planned for 2021, but Google has given the impression that developing a smartwatch OS is currently down on its list of priorities. The state of YouTube Music underlines this, in our opinion. Google released a YouTube Music app for watchOS in October, but Wear OS remains without an equivalent six months on.

Samsung would strengthen Google's smartwatch platform though, albeit while probably signalling the end of Tizen. Ice Universe did not state explicitly that Samsung would adopt Wear OS, so the company could be developing an Android-based OS, instead. Samsung released the Galaxy Gear with an Android 4.3-based OS in 2013, for example, before switching to Tizen a year later with the Gear 2. It is worth noting that Google did not release its first smartwatch OS until 2014, then called Android Wear, which did not arrive until two months after Samsung released the Gear 2.

Incidentally, GalaxyClub asserts that Samsung is already developing a new batch of smartwatches. According to the Dutch Website, Samsung has assigned these devices the model numbers SM-R86x and SM-R87x. Samsung released the Galaxy Watch 3 in two sizes (SM-R84x & SM-R85x), so we imagine that the SM-R86x and SM-R87x are two versions of the same smartwatch. Incidentally, the SM-R84x is the larger of the two Galaxy Watch 3 models, despite its lower model number. Hence, we suspect that the SM-R86x will be Samsung's next flagship smartwatch.

It is unclear when Samsung will announce the SM-R86x or SM-R87x, though. GalaxyClub speculates that the smartwatches may arrive alongside the next Galaxy Z Fold and Galaxy Z Flip, but there is currently no evidence to suggest that this will be the case.

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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2021 02 > Samsung has two new Galaxy smartwatches in development and they may be running Wear OS
Alex Alderson, 2021-02-22 (Update: 2021-02-22)