Despite Wear partnership with Google, Samsung’s not giving up on Tizen yet
Google shocked everyone and announced a partnership with Samsung as the companies are joining forces to work on the new ‘Wear’ wearable operating system. The plan is to bring the best things from Google’s Wear OS and Samsung’s Tizen OS, along with some Fitbit sprinkled in. Samsung even went so far as to confirm that its next smartwatch will be powered by Wear, and not Tizen OS.
But what does that mean for Samsung’s existing smartwatches, including the likes of the Galaxy Watch 3 or Galaxy Watch Active 2? Well, Samsung isn’t ready to just leave its customers in the dark, at least, not yet.
Samsung has confirmed that it will continue to support Tizen Galaxy Watches for up to three years, ensuring that your investment doesn’t end up as a paperweight. Truthfully, it wouldn’t be a good look for Samsung or Google if the $400 Galaxy Watch 3 was just thrown to the way-side and never saw another update again, despite not even being a year old yet.
At Samsung, we always put customers at the heart of everything we do. That’s why we are committed to bringing them the best possible smartwatch experiences. For customers who already own the Tizen OS based Galaxy smartwatches, we are continuing to provide at least three years of software support after the product launch.
Thankfully, that’s not the case as the Watch 3 will see updates at least until August 2023. Unfortunately, we don’t have a specific timeline for Samsung’s currently available smartwatches, which also includes the Samsung Galaxy Watch which is a couple of years old at this point.
We’re not exactly sure as to when Samsung and Google will launch the first Wear-powered device, but it’s safe to assume that it would be the Galaxy Watch 4. With Samsung being rumored to launch the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 3 in August, it would make sense for a new smartwatch to accompany these smartphones.