This is the question I keep asking myself, because we both have rumors and a possible code reference to Samsung working on a Wear OS watch for the first time since the platform launched in 2014. I can’t decide if Samsung should make a Wear OS watch. again or if they have to stay far.
To catch up with you, we think Samsung is working on a Wear OS watch, because we first had a rumor of a consistently accurate Samsung leak suggesting it. The rumor was quickly followed by a report that Samsung had left some code in their core source, acknowledging a product called ‘Merlin’ that had something to do with Wear OS. This is noteworthy because Samsung Wear OS has not touched Gear Live since 2014 and has only released watches with their own Tizen operating system. As one of the bigger players in the smartwatch game, it would be a big moves for Samsung to switch from platform.
Would that be a good move? Again, this is where we come back to the title question. I do not know! Here’s what I can tell you.
Wear OS is still an outdated, barely workable, sometimes portable platform that Google has almost completely abandoned. They care so little about Wear OS that their leaders do not even know if it is participating in their own developer conference. Some of its key features have been crumbling for months and are now only getting attention from Google because the media has a stink about it. People are constantly asking Google if this is a dead platform.
Google tries to tell us that they invest in Wear OS and wearables every few months, so we should at least keep it up. We also got a decent update from Wear OS last fall. It was not major, but it was an update that showed that Google is still working on it. We even have a new Snapdragon Wear 4100 disc with a lot of promise, just no one willing to use it outside of Mobvoi (and maybe Motorola). I think it’s generally safe to say that Wear OS is not a thriving platform, but has few partners that manufacture devices and that he would have died years ago if Fossil had kept it alive with its many brands.
But what if Samsung made a Wear OS watch? Well, Samsung makes good hardware. The Galaxy Watch Active 2 was a fantastic watch focused on fitness, while the Galaxy Watch 3 is definitely an excellent feel. They make their own portable chips that are regularly updated over time. They do cool things, like inserting rotating edges and locating advanced health statistics. Samsung makes really nice smartwatches – they just do not wear Wear OS.
Where I think the idea gets interesting is just because a switch for Samsung could very well mean that Google has new plans for Wear OS. Does this mean a brand new UI and new apps and services and a mature Wear OS unlike anything we’ve seen before? Eh, maybe? Or maybe Samsung will simply transfer all their stuff.
An example of this is the OPPO Watch or the TicWatch Pro 3, where both companies have placed a bunch of their own software on these watches with accompanying apps synced with smartphones, almost outside of Wear OS. They even turned on their own app launchers because Google is so frustrating to use them. Samsung can do something similar with Samsung Health, while relying on most of the others on Google, such as Google Assistant, notifications, Google apps, and so on.
There’s another part of me that thinks the right move for Google would be to open Wear OS a little more, let someone like Samsung slap on it, and then use more like Android on a phone. With so little interest in Wear OS as it is now, it’s time for Google to let companies see their own visions. In a way, we saw companies like Fossil do this, where they added battery modes and sleep tracking because Google could not find the time. But these companies can definitely take things to another level if Google allows it.
Returning to the topic I am handing over, I think yes, Samsung making a Wear OS watch is interesting. However, this is not only interesting, because Samsung makes nice smartwatches. Instead, the details I want to know are in the why Samsung will return to Wear OS. What does Google do?