Samsung’s first smartwatch ran Google’s Android Wear software. But the following year Samsung switched to using its own software based on the Tizen operating system, which has powered Samsung smartwatches ever since.

Now Samsung and Google are combining elements of their wearable operating systems to create what they’re calling a “single, unified platform” that will be known as Wear OS 3, and that’s what Samsung’s next-gen watches will run when they ship later this year.

Update 7/22/2021: Google says Wear OS 3 will roll out as a software update for some recent watches from Mobvoi and Fossil, but it doesn’t seem to be coming to any older Samsung watches that originally shipped with Samsung’s Tizen-base smartwatch operating system.

According to Google, benefits of the new unified platform include longer battery life and apps that start as much as 30 percent more quickly. Samsung says it hopes that the new platform “will ignite innovation” and “inspire third party development” since wearable app developers will theoretically be able to target more devices at once moving forward.

Google says the new unified software platform has been optimized to better take advantage of low-power hardware cores to enable long battery life even when doing things like:

  • Continuous heart rate measurements throughout the day
  • Overnight sleep tracking

The next version of Wear OS will also feature a revamped user interface with new shortcuts for doing things like navigating to the previous app, new home screen customization options, and redesigned apps including Google Maps, Assistant, and Pay.

After acquiring Fitbit, Google is also getting ready to bring the company’s health tracking features to Wear OS. And YouTube Music is also coming to the OS later this year.

While it seems like the new platform may be the default OS for future Samsung smartwatches, the company says it will continue to support existing watches running its Tizen-based software, with at least three years of software support from the date of launch.

While the big news from today’s announcement is Samsung’s return to the fold, Google notes that the new version of Wear OS isn’t just for Google and Samsung devices. The new platform will be open to all companies making wearables.

What remains to be seen is whether this will spur any of those companies to use next-gen hardware. Most Wear OS watches on the market are still using aging technology rather than the latest chips that were supposed to bring improved performance.

But maybe that won’t matter if Google and Samsung can deliver on the promise of bringing improved performance at the operating system level.

 

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6 replies on “Google and Samsung merge Wear OS and Tizen into a single platform”

  1. nice idea, tizen is great (kaiOS too, meybe merge kaios and tizen )
    good optimalisation in assembler make miracles efect.

  2. Wasn’t Tizen already an unholy union of Meego and Bada? Meego being an unholy union of Moblin and Maemo? Holy unholy unions!

  3. Let me guess, they will try to make hybrid on top of Fuchsia by backporting Tizen API stacks (Net.Core, web, C) and actually ditch Android based WearOS under the hood?

    1. That’s exactly what I was thinking too.
      But maybe that’s not a bad idea?

    2. Since WearOS ran on select Snapdragon SoCs, I am not sure why Google pushed for a Java API instead of a C API.

      1. Well, they already had Android, so why not reuse. Modern ART is not that bad actually, and it makes developers life much, much easier.
        Given that they actually need only subset of features, they can in theory simplify all that native horror they now have in Android. Tizen on smartwatches was done pretty smart: you have a low level C API, a web API, and NET.Core with pieces of Xamarin Forms and custom APIs. Since underlying native layer is very simple, it’s pretty easy to port the entire stack on top of any kernel. It looks like a very good candidate to put on top of Fuchsia, with also adding a port of WearOS widgets and services.

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