Samsung commits to three years of updates for current Galaxy Watch smartwatches, but no Wear or Wear OS upgrades
Samsung may have announced that it would be adopting Wear OS, now Wear, but there is a catch. Buried at the bottom of Samsung's press release is a paragraph titled 'Continued Commitment to Existing Galaxy Smartwatch Users', which implies that current Galaxy Watch smartwatches will remain on Tizen OS indefinitely.
Specifically, Samsung has committed to providing 'at least three years of software support after the product launch', which would be April 2022 for the Galaxy Watch Active, autumn 2022 for the Galaxy Watch Active 2 and August 2023 in the case of the Galaxy Watch 3. Samsung released the Galaxy Watch in August 2018, so its software support will run out in three months.
Hence, no current Galaxy Watch smartwatches will receive Wear OS. Samsung will probably add new features to the Galaxy Watch 3 and the Watch Active 2, although we expect Samsung to incentivise Tizen OS users to migrate to Wear OS. Response from Galaxy Watch owners has been mixed, but many people seem excited about what innovations Samsung could bring to the Wear OS platform. The Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch Active 4 series are expected to arrive in the summer.
