Wear OS 4 is coming to the original Pixel Watch ‘later this year’

Ben Schoon | Oct 5 2023 - 7:24 am PT

Wear OS 4 is seeing its formal launch with the Pixel Watch 2, but Google has confirmed that the original Pixel Watch will also see the update in the very near future.

Google this week announced that Wear OS 4 is now “stable,” with the update’s proper debut on the Pixel Watch 2. The explanation is interesting, as Wear OS 4 technically already runs on the Galaxy Watch 6 series, and has also been rolled out to Galaxy Watch 5 and Watch 4.

But, thankfully, 2022’s Pixel Watch won’t miss out on the fun.

Google’s first smartwatch, the company says, will get Wear OS 4 starting “later this year.”

Later this year, Pixel Watches will receive a system update to Wear OS 4, further expanding the set of users who can enjoy your app’s capabilities on the latest software.

“Later this year” always sounds like it’s a long time away, but given it’s October, that means we’ll see the update in a matter of just a few weeks.

In the same blog post, Google goes over some of the new features found in Wear OS 4, such as the ability to “transfer” your watch to a new phone instead of factory resetting it. Google also points out that Tiles have been enhanced with added animations, and that a collaboration with Samsung has brought a new “Watch Face Format” that uses XML to create a watch face. The short version of what that means is that, for developers, it should be much easier to create watch face designs.

Notably, we previously spotted references to a “Wear OS Beta Program,” which suggests that Google might first launch Wear OS 4 for Pixel Watch in beta before a formal release. There’s no official word on that just yet, though, and we also don’t know when Wear OS 4 might make its way to other Wear OS brands such as Fossil.