YouTube Music now available on Wear OS 2 watches powered by the Snapdragon Wear 3100

Abner Li | Oct 12 2021 - 10:31 am PT

Back in September, Google announced that its YouTube-branded streaming service was dropping Galaxy Watch 4 exclusivity and coming to Wear OS 2 devices running the Snapdragon Wear 4100. YouTube Music can now be installed on even older watches powered by the Wear 3100 chipset.

The launch of YouTube Music was previously limited to wearables with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear 4100 or 4100+ chipset. This covered new Fossil and Michael Kors Gen 6 devices, as well as the Mobvoi TicWatch Pro 3 GPS, TicWatch Pro 3 Cellular/LTE, and TicWatch E3. The company said older watches would get YouTube Music “later this year.”

Those watch wearers only had to wait two weeks as YouTube Music now appears in the Play Store. You can install it by searching on the watch or via the phone client with remote downloading. We saw it on a Moto 360 this morning, while one reader has successfully installed it on a TAG Heuer Connected.

Both wearables are powered by the Snapdragon Wear 3100, while Google’s official confirmation specifies YouTube Music availability for “more watches running the latest version of Wear OS 2.” This should include many Fossil Gen 5 devices out in the wild.

YouTube Music for Wear OS lets you download playlists to your watch for on-the-go listening without your phone. “Smart Downloads” refresh what’s cached when the wearable is on Wi-Fi and charging. A YouTube Music Premium subscription is required.

The app is primarily a long list split into “Downloads,” “Recommended,” and “Library.” The first section can include your “Offline Mixtape,” “Your Likes,” and “Discover Mix.” This is followed by playlist suggestions, while “Settings” is located at the very bottom where you can select how many songs are stored. Once playback is initiated, you can swipe left for Now Playing controls, which lets you like/unlike tracks.