Samsung Galaxy Watch4 and Galaxy Watch4 Classic receive numerous changes and improvements with One UI Watch 4.5 update

Samsung has finally brought One UI Watch 4.5 out of beta for the Galaxy Watch4 and Galaxy Watch4 Classic. Introduced alongside the Galaxy Watch5 and Galaxy Watch5 Pro, Samsung actually revealed what One UI Watch 4.5 features would make it to the Galaxy Watch4 series in July. Additionally, the company released Galaxy Watch5 series watch faces for the Galaxy Watch4 and Galaxy Watch4 Classic, which arrived a little over two weeks ago.

For some reason, Samsung has not provided a concrete launch schedule yet. Presumably, Samsung will introduce One UI Watch 4.5 gradually over the course of the next few weeks. Currently, Samsung has started rolling out the update in the US, where it arrives as R8xxXXU1GVH2, with the 'xx' specific to your smartwatch's model number. According to Samsung's changelog, One UI Watch 4.5 remains based on Android Wear 11, or Wear OS 3.5 with Android 11 as its underlying code. 

Moreover, the update contains the 2022-08-01 security patch level, upgrading the Galaxy Watch4 series from the 2022-05-01 patch. As far as we can tell, Samsung has not included a full changelog for Galaxy Watch4 series models that were enrolled on the One UI Watch 4.5 beta program. Instead, Samsung has repeated the contents of a post that the One UI Beta Team shared on the Samsung Community. The full One UI Watch 4.5 changelog for the Galaxy Watch4 and Galaxy Watch4 Classic is as follows:

• Watch Face

  • Enjoy new and improved watch faces with enriched style and customizable options.
    • 6 new watch faces (Pebbles, Flower garden, Info Board, Pro analog, Kinetic digits, Gradient number)
    • More customizable options added for existing watch faces (Dial, Indexes, Character, Color, Complication, Clock type)
    • New complications have been added.
    • Watch home screen
    • Add watch faces as your favorite, make finding and changing watch face easier.
    • Explore watch face list to add watch face as your favorite including new watch faces.

• Camera Controller

  • A feature that allows you to switch between photo and video shooting will be added.
    • ※ Only Samsung flagship models after Galaxy S9 and Note9 with OneUI 4.1.1 or later are supported.

• Input characters
  • You can input characters using the QWERTY keyboard and gestures. (Some languages are not supported)
  • You can switch between different input mode (keyboard, voice input, and handwriting) during text entry

• Notifications
  • GIF animation playback of Samsung message notifications is supported.

• Phone, Contacts

  • When Watch is connected to dual SIM phone,
    • The SIM icon used on the phone is displayed the same on the watch.
    • If there is no preferred SIM set on the phone, it can select the SIM to make a call on the watch.
    • It supports to make calls through other SIMs on the watch even if there is a preferred SIM set on the phone.

• Messages
  • The input field is provided in the message threads.
  • Through the input field, the recently used input mode is supported.
  • Draft messages are kept in the input field.

• Alarm
  • "Date, alarm name, snooze" settings features are added.

• Voice recordings
  • Files recorded on the Watch are quickly saved to the connected phone.

• Settings
  • Larger sizes for font size settings are supported.

• Accessibility
  • Additional auxiliary features for "improving visibility" are supported.
  • A "Left and right sound balance" control feature for "hearing aids" was added.
  • A "Touch and hold delay" settings feature to aid "Interaction and dexterity" was added.

• Bixby
  • The "Quick commands" feature, which groups together and runs multiple actions in one command, is supported.

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