An annoying quirk of Wear OS – and many other smartwatches – has long been that moving to a new smartphone also meant resetting your watch. With Wear OS 4, that’s done away with, and the new Galaxy Watch beta offers a first look at this functionality.
Google announced Wear OS 4 about a month ago, and the update is already in the works with new features. Our team has already shown off the upcoming Material You integration to change system accent colors.
Now, that version is in beta on Samsung Galaxy Watches, with the One UI Watch 5 update being based on Wear OS 4.0.
As a part of that update, Samsung’s watches get access to the new Wear OS 4 feature that allows users to “transfer” their watch to a new smartphone rather than performing a factory reset. In the update’s changelog, Samsung explains the feature saying:
Transfer your watch without resetting
Switch your watch to a new phone, but keep your apps, watch faces, and more. You can get started in the general settings for your watch in the Galaxy Wearable app.
Our Max Weinbach has since been able to give this a quick test, as pictured below. The process asks if the Google account on your phone matches the one on your watch, and then a pop-up will appear on the new phone to prompt the connection.
It’s not entirely clear if this will work the same way on all Wear OS 4 devices, but the core functionality is likely at least similar.
Max Weinbach contributed to this article.
More on Wear OS:
- Wear OS getting new Keep and Spotify Tiles, Google Wallet transit cards
- TicWatch Pro 5 Review: A fast but bloated Wear OS 3 watch that lasts for days
- From Google Home to WhatsApp, Wear OS apps have come a long way
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