Samsung announces One UI Watch beta program for the Galaxy Watch4 and Galaxy Watch4 Classic

Samsung has decided to bring its One UI beta program to the Galaxy Watch4 and Galaxy Watch4 Classic, still the only smartwatches running Wear OS 3. Announced on its Korean language community forum, the One UI Watch beta program will commence on June 2, for which Samsung will also release a comparable beta wearable app. Seemingly, Samsung is beta testing a new version of One UI Watch ahead of releasing the Galaxy Watch5 series, including the rumoured Galaxy Watch5 Pro.

Unfortunately, Samsung has only confirmed eligibility for Galaxy Watch4 and Galaxy Watch4 Classic units residing in South Korea. According to the same community post, people will be able to register for One UI Watch beta builds through the Samsung Members app, mirroring the procedure for the One UI smartphone beta program. Presumably, Samsung will release One UI Watch beta builds in other countries eventually, although it is unclear when.

It remains to be seen what innovations Samsung plans to introduce with the next version of One UI Watch. Currently, Google has not released the vanilla version of Wear OS 3 yet, despite announcing it at Google I/O 2021. While Google claimed that some Wear OS 2 smartwatches would receive Wear OS 3 this summer, it has not mentioned this timeline at all this year. Also, the Pixel Watch will not launch until the autumn, so it seems that any future One UI Watch builds will remain on Wear OS 3 in one form or another.

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