Google's smartwatch operating system -- Wear OS, has been around for a long time. It was initially called Android Wear but was updated and renamed to Wear OS later, competing directly against watchOS from Apple. Well, only in terms of the moniker.
Wear OS did bring a good set of features that you would expect from a smartwatch but was let down by sub-par SoCs used by OEMs in their watches. WatchOS on the Apple Watch, on the other hand, kept building on its lead as the best smartwatch OS, beating Wear OS by a big margin.
While there was nothing wrong with the feature set on Wear OS, the experience it offered -- even on the most expensive watches -- was sub-par. It was plagued with performance issues and lags throughout the UI and battery optimization was extremely poor leading to watches lasting less than a day on a full charge. Even with a revamp and a visual overhaul a few years back, Google was unable to fix these core issues that users had with Wear OS.
As a result, a reliable Android smartwatch was more of a fantasy than reality unless you picked one up from Samsung. But that too came with Samsung's own Tizen OS and didn't support a lot of apps. Since Samsung was doing a fairly good job with smartwatches and it was high time Google revived their smartwatch platform, the two companies recently got into a partnership to breathe life back into Wear OS.
We now have the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 with One UI Watch which is essentially a version of Wear OS 3 with Samsung's own customization on top. While Wear OS 3 is currently limited to Samsung's new smartwatches, the update is expected to roll out to some other watches soon. When it does, you'll surely want to update to the latest version.
Here are some simple steps that will help you update your Wear OS smartwatch to the latest version.
How to Update Wear OS Smartwatch via an OTA Update
Just like your smartphone, your Wear OS smartwatch can also receive OTA or over-the-air updates directly on the watch itself, which can be downloaded and installed locally to upgrade your watch to the latest version. This applies to all updates rolled out for your Wear OS smartwatch and not necessarily the new, revamped version. In fact, Google itself is still unsure if any of the existing smartwatches will get the new Wear OS 3.0 update or not.
Either way, here's how to update your Wear OS smartwatch to the latest version.
- Make sure your Wear OS smartwatch is connected to your smartphone to ensure the watch is connected to the internet.
-
Open the Settings app on your Wear OS smartwatch.
- Scroll down to the System option and tap on it.
-
Next, tap on About and scroll down to find the System Updates option.
-
Tap on the option and your watch will automatically check for any new Wear OS update.
- If there's an update available, select download and install. If your watch is already on the latest firmware, you'll get a message that says System is up to date.
How to Update Wear OS Smartwatch via the Play Store
Some of the core elements and features of Wear OS are linked to the Wear OS app that's installed on the smartwatch. Updating the Wear OS app from the Play Store can introduce new features to your smartwatch or improve its stability. Here's how you can update the Wear OS app on your smartwatch.
- Make sure your Wear OS smartwatch is connected to your smartphone to ensure the watch is connected to the internet.
- Open the Play Store app on your smartwatch.
-
Scroll down and select My Apps.
- From the list of apps shown, find the Wear OS by Google Smartwatch app and select Update.
- Wait till the app gets updated and then reboot your Wear OS watch to experience any new features or improvements.
These are the two ways how you can update your Wear OS smartwatch and make sure you're up to date with features and stability improvements. While we don't have an exact timeframe for when the new version of Wear OS will be available and whether or not it'll be supported on existing smartwatches, you can use these methods to update your watch if you're lucky enough to have a supported smartwatch.