One of the most interesting stories to follow in recent weeks has been that of Samsung’s next wearable. There have been a few rumors pointing towards Samsung’s potential return to Wear OS, but now it’s looking like this smartwatch will run Tizen after all…
Samsung’s past few smartwatches have landed with “Gear” branding, but following some trademarks, the company’s next is expected to be the “Galaxy Watch.” According to a report from ZDNet, this watch will indeed be launching with Samsung’s own Tizen operating system, not Google’s Wear OS. SamMobile backs up this report, further detailing that the wearable will run Tizen 4.0.
With Wear OS out of the picture, we can probably expect a device pretty similar to the Gear S3 family and Gear Sport which the company launched last year. The report, unfortunately, doesn’t give us any details on what Samsung has changed, but it does mention a focus on improving health features.
Further, this report gives us a launch window for this product. Apparently, Samsung will be announcing the product alongside its Galaxy Note 9 on August 9th, with the watch itself going on sale on August 24th. This report also supports previous rumors of an August 14th pre-order date for the Note 9, with the phone also going on sale August 24th.
9to5Google’s Take
Since the first rumors of a Galaxy Watch running Wear OS, I’ve been skeptical. Samsung’s Tizen has done so well for the company, it makes sense to stick with it for the foreseeable future. If Google manages to turn Wear OS around and make it a compelling option, Samsung would be a fantastic hardware partner. For the time being, though, I’ll be excited to see what the Galaxy Watch running Tizen delivers.
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