Whoops, Google pulls Wear OS 5 following bricking reports
A couple of days ago, Google released Wear OS 5 for older Pixel Watches. Major updates like this are a good thing, but unfortunately, that isn’t the case here. According to multiple user reports, the Wear OS 5 update is bricking several smartwatches which has led to Google pulling the update.
According to a report from 9to5Google, Google seems to have temporarily halted the rollout of the update. If you haven’t updated your smartwatch yet, then consider yourself lucky. It doesn’t appear to be a particularly widespread issue, but presumably it is big enough to force Google to halt the release until a fix can be found.
It is unclear what could be the cause of the issue that is bricking smartwatches with Wear OS 5, but if you haven’t updated yet, you’ll have to wait for the fix. For those who have updated and your watch is running just fine, you should be good for now. Those who are affected by it, the fix would be to reset the device using Fastboot.
Hopefully Google won’t take too long to find the root cause and address it. There is no timeline on when the rollout will resume, but we’ll keep our eyes peeled for more information when it does.