Samsung announces some bad news for many Galaxy smartwatches

Samsung is preparing to launch several next-generation smartwatches, including the Galaxy Watch Ultra and the Galaxy Watch FE. For reference, the latter is effectively a rebadged Galaxy Watch4 (curr. $199.99 on Amazon), which the company released almost three years ago. Nonetheless, even the Galaxy Watch4 should continue to receive software updates for a while yet.

By contrast, Samsung has quietly announced that it will stop providing updates for all its older smartwatches running Tizen OS. Hence, all Samsung smartwatches before the Galaxy Watch4 series are affected, including the Galaxy Watch3. For reference, the list extends to the original Galaxy Watch, as well as to the Galaxy Gear, the Galaxy Watch Active and the Galaxy Watch Active2.

In a post reproduced on Reddit, Samsung has outlined that the process will start on September 30, 2024, when it will become impossible to purchase paid Tizen content. Following that, the company will prevent any free Tizen content downloads on May 31 2025. Worse still, Samsung will even disable the ability to re-download existing apps effective September 30, 2025. Consequently, although the smartwatches listed above will remain usable after that date, it will be impossible to switch an older Tizen-based Galaxy smartwatch to a new smartphone in just over a year's time.