Samsung smartwatches with Wear OS aren’t happening as originally suspected. Back in May it was reported that some Samsung employees were seen with Samsung Gear smartwatches that were running on Wear OS instead of Tizen, which was likely an exciting thought for many as Samsung’s Gear S line of smartwatches has been exceedingly popular, but lacked the clout of Google’s smartwatch platform when it came to applications, as the Wear OS platform (previously Android Wear) has a lot more to offer in that department than Samsung’s software offering.
While there had been no confirmation from Samsung or Google that a Wear OS watch was coming, watches being spotted with the software running on them seems like it could have been enough potential evidence to make it believable that Samsung was looking to create such a product. It had after created the Gear Live, it’s very first smartwatch and one of the very first Android Wear smartwatches, alongside the LG G Watch and the Moto 360 that launched the same year. According to Evan Blass on Twitter, though, Gear watches with Wear OS were simply “one-offs” that were created by Google for a select few Samsung workers, and if that’s the case then any future smartwatches from Samsung are likely to continue running Tizen software like previous devices in the lineup.
This might have been a long-shot all along, especially since Samsung’s own Tizen-powered smartwatches haven’t really been doing poorly, and even though it seems believable given that Samsung created a smartwatch for Google’s platform before. That said, it would appear that Samsung has no intentions of deviating from the path it’s on with sticking to Tizen as its wearable operating system platform, which means consumers will need to continue to make a choice should they prefer Samsung’s build and hardware but Google’s software when it comes to smartwatches.