Galaxy Watch 4 will get a new One UI Watch beta on top of Wear OS next month

Ben Schoon | May 24 2022 - 7:15 am PT

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Software is one of the best parts of the Galaxy Watch 4, with a messy but very functional mix of Samsung and Google’s strengths. Now, Samsung is looking at the next step for its Wear OS skin, “One UI Watch,” with a beta coming to the Galaxy Watch 4 in June.

Announced on Samsung’s community forums, a One UI Watch beta will be made available to Galaxy Watch 4 owners starting early next month.

The beta program will open up, at least in South Korea, on June 2. Given Samsung’s history, though, we expect this beta to be made available to Galaxy Watch 4 owners in other regions including the US fairly quickly. Samsung says the beta will be made available to the “regular” (i.e. Bluetooth-only) version of the Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic.

Galaxy Watch 4 beta: What will be new?

What’s new in this beta? Samsung says the update will be for its One UI Watch skin on top of Wear OS, but there’s currently no information available on what precisely is set to be changed.

It seems entirely likely, though, that Samsung will be making some incremental updates on the surface-level, and perhaps updating the underlying core with improvements to Wear OS itself. After all, we know that Google is preparing its own Pixel Watch, which will likely come with its own batch of changes to the platform – perhaps Samsung will be sharing some of those. It’s also quite likely that this update will contain some of the new features or design tweaks set to arrive on the Galaxy Watch 5 series. A recent rumor claimed there would be a “new version” of One UI Watch on that new series.

Like Samsung’s Android betas on its Galaxy smartphones, registration for the beta on smartwatches will go through the Samsung Members app. The program appears that it will be open through August.