Wear OS like Android: one major update per year, also support for older models

With the presentation on 6 October, Google has made it known that it intends to get serious also in smartwatch market, with its Pixel Watch ready to debut. This happens in parallel with the innovations introduced for Wear OS.

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Downstream of the official Google event, Wired interviewed Björn Kilburndirector of product management for Wear OS, who provided interesting details about the near future of Wear OS. The first news is that one will be released new version by Wear OS every year.

It is not clear if it will pass from 3.0 to 4.0 or if the passage from 3.0 to 3.5, which happened this year for the Galaxy Watch 5 and Pixel Watch, will count as a new version. With a major update to the year Wear OS will adopt the same line as Androidand will also be compatible with the ability to integrate easily and promptly the news introduced by Android with a wearable theme.

On top of that, Kilburn has reported that they will arrive quarterly updates for support that will last all year round.

This reminds us a lot of i Pixel Feature Drop that Google releases every 3 months.

It was also pointed out that, starting with Wear OS 3, they will be the individual manufacturers to be responsible release of the update. So it will be up to the individual producers be quick in the release of the OTA for their smartwatch models.

Still on the subject of updates, Kilburn reiterated that even the old models which are still with Wear OS 2 and which integrate a processor Snapdragon Wear 4100 and 4100+ they will be updated to Wear OS 3 before the end of the year. This major update should require a device reset.

In conclusion, Kilburn reiterated that Google is confirmed very busy on Wear OS and therefore we can expect a lasting and continuous support wearable operating system.