From trash fire to crown jewels: Wear OS finally gets good at MWC 2021

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Source: Nick Sutrich / Android Central / Samsung

When my son was born over 7 years ago, my “dad’s new gift” was the original Samsung Galaxy Gear. I got one with the hot orange band because I wanted to make a statement. Unfortunately, the Galaxy Gear didn’t last long as I quickly upgraded to the Samsung Galaxy Live – one of the original Android Wear watches that was about to show the world what a smartwatch was supposed to be. That cycle has gone on and on – with the launch of a new platform, a new update has been revealed. However, the experience seems to get worse over time, not better.

Fast-forward to today, and despite all the amazing-looking smartwatches on the market, I haven’t worn one every day since 2019. From sluggish performance, to terrible battery life, to the general malaise I’ve experienced over the years with faltering Wear OS From Google, I’m getting even more frustrated. When I eliminated Samsung’s inability to provide proper Android-wide notifications (read: notifications I can actually do something with)—I felt like I was constantly trying to justify my smartwatch purchases.

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Fortunately, MWC 2021 has finally given me a reason to care about Android smartwatches again with the announcement of Wear OS with One UI, which comes first in Samsung’s next smartwatch, which is supposed to be the Galaxy Watch 4. At the event, it didn’t Samsung’ selected the model but said it will debut at the next Samsung Unpacked event later this summer, cementing its position at the top of the list of the best smartwatches.

Real solutions to real problems

Source: Google

When viewed as a whole, there is little argument that Samsung’s Tizen platform is a better smartwatch experience compared to current Wear OS watches. The battery life is noticeably better, performance is a whole generation higher than what’s found on Wear OS, and the fitness apps are better on Tizen. Fortunately, it all comes down to the new Wear OS, complete with Wear OS’s better handling of notifications than Tizen’s lackluster efforts.

Performance improvements – up to 30% faster, according to Samsung’s presentation at MWC 2021 – are at the heart of the experience. We’re also seeing a focus on multi-day battery life, which is something Tizen was really good at, while Wear OS consistently fumbles with that expectation. There is no doubt that smartwatches have a tough set of expectations to meet, as consistent performance and long-lasting battery life were not a reality in the digital world until very recently.

The new Wear OS seems to combine the best of both worlds between Google’s existing platforms and those of Samsung.

I spoke with Carmi Levi, a tech analyst well versed in the world of smartwatches and smartphones, about this very topic. He seemed very happy to proceed with the new path.

Wear OS was seriously compromised by the limitations of the legacy chipsets that its devices had to adopt. The lack of new, more efficient processors meant that the “new” Wear OS hardware simply couldn’t compete on core wearable metrics like battery life, app performance, and stability. The new platform should fully address these concerns, and then some, with powerful new devices that exceed consumers’ expectations about performance and battery life. The game ends if this does not happen.

Carmi Levy, Technology Analyst

Samsung has specifically talked about prioritizing health apps in the new Wear OS, which includes a unified health platform. This should involve turning Samsung Health and Google Fit into one cohesive platform, but it will also require moving forward to ensure that health sensors are more accurate and consistent. While that sounds like marketing rhetoric, Samsung says its new Wear OS devices will use a “custom ultra-low power core” that can run the heart rate sensor at all times without negatively affecting battery life.

Google and Samsung are working to make the most developer-friendly smartwatch operating system either company has ever produced.

These are the kinds of improvements that tell me this is serious business for these companies and not just another lukewarm effort. The watches will have an eSIM built in so that you can go to the carrier’s store and pick up a watch when you pick up the phone. It also means that most – or perhaps even all – smartwatches with the new Wear OS will be able to run on their own without the need for a phone nearby, indicating that this is a decent platform ready to really work on its own. Including all Google apps only reinforces this thought.

In addition, Google and Samsung ensure that this is the most developer-friendly smart OS that either company has made by including existing Android development tools with the introduction of the new Wear OS. This doesn’t just mean better apps; It also means better watch faces, something that Apple really failed to do with watchOS. Custom watch faces are one of the best reasons to get a smartwatch over a regular watch and one of the reasons I stick with Wear OS as long as I do.

Do big changes prevent big failures?

Source: Derrek Lee / Android Central

While Google and Samsung have been running rival platforms for years, the new Wear OS is finally a way forward for two companies with different visions of what a smartwatch should be. In a very realistic sense, this is the pinnacle of the open concept that Google has worked toward with Android, as it seems to take the best changes that have been made to the operating system over the years and translate them into a watch form factor.

OEMs can change to the new Wear OS, bringing back painful memories of Android phones’ past.

Case in point: The new Wear OS on Samsung Galaxy smartwatches will ship with One UI “skin” — though I suspect they’ll avoid that word — so while the basic functionality will remain the same as other new Wear OS watches, Samsung’s own “flavor” of Wear OS will have unique advantages over Fossil or TicWatch smartwatches.

Although this sounds a bit intimidating on the surface, this finally gives brands the ability to differentiate their smartwatches in a more substantial way than simply offering different watch faces and physical hardware. This homogeneity has always been the biggest advantage and disadvantage of the Google platform because, after all, it means that most watches retain an identical look and feel despite the presence of new or different hardware.

Levy believes that this decision will not necessarily be as problematic in the wearable market as it is in the Android smartphone market:

While allowing the skin opens up all the caveats that have been presented in the Android smartphone market—including significantly delayed OS updates, inconsistent end-user experiences, and app incompatibilities—it’s fair to assume that user behaviors The final and its prospects are significantly different in wearable devices than ever before in the smartphone market. Apps do not play a significant role with wearables, and major OS updates during the life of the wearable are not as relevant as they might be with smartphones. Google had virtually nothing to lose. So if allowing sellers to offer their own decks gives it some kind of advantage, it’s totally worth the effort.

Carmi Levy, Technology Analyst

But does this mean that OEMs will go back to the old cycle of never updating devices with new software? For Samsung, at least, it certainly isn’t. At MWC 2021, Samsung said that current Galaxy watches powered by Tizen will receive a full three years of support, while we fully expect the latest watches to meet at least that level. Additionally, Samsung’s latest improvements to phone update cycles mean that Galaxy phones will get updates for four years after release, making them better than Google’s update schedule.

It will be interesting to see if some OEMs revert to those old traps.

Some old but good ideas are back – a sure sign that both companies have been listening to feedback.

Even Google is bringing back some old ideas that turned out to be good — a sure sign that both companies have been listening to feedback and committed to building a really good monitoring operating system. One of the biggest examples I’ve seen so far is about watch apps, which will now install automatically when the same app is installed on your phone.

This auto-install was a hallmark of early versions of Android Wear before the Google Play Store was properly included in later Wear OS updates. While dealing with these combinations has been pretty poor in the past, Google and Samsung seem to have designed a solution that offers the best of both worlds; Automatic installation behind the scenes along with the appropriate App Store when you need it.

Leave a good hour behind

Source: Nick Sutrich / Android Central

The biggest question now revolves around the latest WearOS and Samsung Galaxy watches. While both lines have newer hardware and are certainly compatible with the power and other specs required to run the new Wear OS, many OEMs have been dancing around the question of whether to update their smartwatches to the new OS.

Few people seem to know when – or if – current smartwatches will get the new update.

Qualcomm, the chip maker that powers current Wear OS watches, says that the Snapdragon Wear 3100, 4100 and 4100+ platforms will support Wear OS 3.0. Mobvoi, the maker of TicWatch smartwatches, says it’s working with Google and hopes to update the brand’s new watches. On the other hand, Fossil said that none of its watches will receive the update. Meanwhile, Samsung only talked about the new Wear OS that will appear on the upcoming Galaxy Watch that will launch later this summer.

In short, it’s a mess. Or maybe it’s just a puzzle? Either way, it will take some time for you to be sure of that.

There’s nothing quite like starting a new journey by burning the bridges designed to get there, but it looks like many OEMs might be satisfied with this strategy. Given what we’ve seen from Samsung and Google so far, maybe that’s a good thing in the end. But, like Windows 11, where Microsoft enforces minimum hardware specifications to run its latest OS, the new Wear OS needs to raise its standards in order to deliver a non-clutter experience.

There’s nothing quite like starting a new journey by burning the bridges designed to get there, but it looks like many OEMs might be satisfied with this strategy.

Levy thinks that most users will accept that Google and Samsung have “drawn a line in the sand,” which means older devices will collapse in favor of newer ones.

Current Wear OS watches are largely based on already old Qualcomm chips, so it would be unrealistic for anyone with knowledge of Wear OS’s fickle history to expect some kind of engineering miracle that allows older hardware to magically update to next-generation platforms and services. Likewise, no one expects a 2014 Intel processor to run Windows 11, so why would they expect Google and Samsung to apply the same logic to older wearables? They had to draw the line somewhere.

Carmi Levy, Technology Analyst

It remains to be seen whether users respond positively to this strategy or not. After all, we’ve seen years of user complaints finally add significant changes to the way Android updates are handled. Not only did Google fix what made Android versions so hard in the first place, but OEMs started sticking to actual update schedules, promising multiple major updates before the device was considered expired.

While consumer sentiment about current devices is still up in the air, one thing is crystal clear: Google needs something — anything — to gain traction in the marketplace. It also gives Samsung the ability to extend the following it has rightly gained over the years and, finally, unify the landscape in a way that helps everyone, something Levi agrees with as well.

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