Credit: Jimmy Westenberg / Android Government
- A code sleuth has discovered references to a device name called Merlot that uses WearOS.
- It is believed to be an upcoming WearOS watch from Samsung.
A regular tipster noticed last month, Samsung launched a new smartwatch that will replace Tizen with WearOS. Now it looks like evidence has emerged for a Samsung watch running the Google platform.
XDA developer ivan_meler dug up the Exynos Galaxy S20’s latest core source release and found references to a device called ‘merlot’ in the Wi-Fi driver. The name alone does not tell us much, but the forerunner is that one of the Merlot references appears right next to a “WearOS” reference. This definitely indicates that the Merlot device is a smartwatch that drives WearOS.
There is not much else to know about the new device via the release of the source code, except that the Merlot name is also linked to the Broadcom BCM43013 Bluetooth and Wi-Fi chip.
Related: Why Samsung Should Drop Tizen for Wear OS (and Why It Shouldn’t)
Nevertheless, it serves as the first true proof that Samsung is working on a WearOS smartwatch. However, this does not necessarily mean that the Korean manufacturer is dropping Tizen on its smartwatches, as it could theoretically just launch a WearOS variant of an existing Tizen watch to give consumers more options. We will therefore have to wait for more news and leaks in this regard to find out Samsung’s intentions.
However, there are benefits to using WearOS on Tizen watches, such as more seamless phone integration and more third-party apps. With that said, WearOS is clearly being neglected by Google, with the voice of ‘okay, Google’ being broken for months and the platform missing a YouTube Music client after Google Play Music was killed. In fact, Google has already released YouTube Music on the Apple Watch, which further illustrates how the search giant has neglected its own platform.