Wear OS5 – Finally, Something To Write About

Several years ago Wear OS frequently announced changes. Then there was a pause where seemingly nothing happened for about 2 years. Then BAM. Google rekindled its interest in the Pixel watch and Samsung adopted Wear OS simultaneously seeming to force others out of the market, notably Fossil. Now there’s usually something Wear OS-related to talk or read about each week. Sometimes interesting things!

Samsung copies Apple Watch Ultra and Uses the new Wear OS5

2024’s raft of Samsung Galaxy watches start at under $400 and come in 4 flavours; Watch7 (40mm, 44m), Watch7 LTE (40mm, 47mm), Ultra LTE (£600) and FE (Fan Edition, cheaper).

Galaxy Watch ULTRA is marketed in very similar ways to Apple Watch Ultra highlighting all the comparable features even down to its nighttime red light abilities, even the orange strap appears visually identical. Galaxy Watch Ultra has a new and powerful 3nm CPU plus a larger battery capacity than Watches of previous years. Some watch faces look good but I’m less sure about the case shape.

What’s New in Wear OS5

OS5 boasts many improvements. Here’s a list…

1. Battery Life Improvements that are claimed to save 20%
2. Enhanced Fitness Tracking that includes running metrics like Ground Contact Time. 3rd party Fitness apps can better integrate with Health Connect and there’s also an interesting take on alerts where the Watch uses a degree of intelligence to let you know when a performance alert has been passed ie it might delay telling you a bit to avoid too many alerts sounding.
3. Customization and User Interface: Watchfaces boast ‘flavors’ meaning you can save several customised versions of any face, just like the Apple Watch. As you can also see from the images in this post, there are lots more standard watch faces and a new generation of developer watch faces.
4. Integration and Compatibility: Support is slated for Watch4, Watch5, Watch6 and the current year watches, with the expectation of a new version each year. Pixel 3 will launch with Wear OS5 in October 2024.
5. Several new developer tools

I’d always expected Wear OS to become one of the leading sports and wellness wearable platforms. Wear OS is clearly now heading in a positive direction toward that situation. At present, the watches and software both appear to lag behind Apple and perhaps need a couple of more years to develop more of an equivalency. Even then, Google-Samsung faces an uphill battle to tackle market share outside of the budget end of the market.

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