Google released Wear OS 3 in 2021 with theSamsung Galaxy Watch 4. The company also quickly confirmed the list ofsmartwatches that would get the Wear OS 3 update, which included several wearables from TicWatch. It has been over two years since then, and TicWatch has yet to roll out Wear OS 3 to its watches. Mobvoi released aclosed beta in June 2023but has been silent since then. Thankfully, the patience of TicWatch users is finally paying off, as the company is rolling out the stable Wear OS 3 update for its wearables.
Starting today, Wear OS 3 is rolling out for theTicWatch Pro 3,Pro 3 Ultra, andTicWatch E3, including their LTE models. The company does not directly address the lengthy delay but notes that the “intricate nature of this update necessitated the engineering team to construct an entirely new architecture, which is comparable to developing a novel software structure for the Wear OS 3 system.”
Wear OS 3 should dramatically improve the experience on your TicWatch. Besides navigational and performance improvements with smoother animations, Wear OS 3 will provide access to new apps and watch faces. Mobvoi has not clarified whether the update will haveGoogle Assistantaccess, though. Given the voice assistant is also missing on theTicWatch Pro 5, don’t be too optimistic about it being available on the older watches.
All TicWatch models will continue to work with iPhones after the update. On Android, you have to switch to the Mobvoi Health app to manage the smartwatch, as the Wear OS by Google app will stop functioning.
Mobvoi was pretty much the only company left to fulfill its update promise for Wear OS 2 watches. Fossil also took a while but was still a lot faster by comparison when it updatedits Gen 6 smartwatches to Wear OS 3 in October 2022, albeit without Google Fit and Assistant. More recently, the companyreleased Wear OS 3.5 for its watches, though the firmware has been plagued with bugs and stability issues.
Existing TicWatch users have given the company a lot of flak for the excessive delay in the Wear OS 3 rollout. Worse than the delay was the lack of transparency from Mobvoi’s side, as it did not provide regular updates to customers.
Given that Wear OS 3 took over two years to land, the company might not bringWear OS 4to its existing wearables. And if it does decide to update some models, here’s hoping this will happen a lot faster, especially since Mobvoi claims to have developed a “new architecture” that Wear OS 3 necessitated.
The update starts rolling out today, but it may not show up immediately on your watch due to this being a stages release that rolls out in phases.
