Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 and Ultra will get Wear OS 5 first

Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 7 and Watch Ultra will be the first smartwatches to get access to Wear OS 5, Google’s latest operating system for wearables. The latter was unveiled at today’s Unpacked event, alongside a . These product announcements also took place at .

This means that Samsung’s recently announced gadgets are the very first smartwatches to get Wear OS 5, even before Google’s own products. That will change later this year when the Pixel Watch 3 is expected to be released. Interestingly, that’s exactly what happened with Wear OS 4. The operating system first arrived on the Galaxy Watch 6 before being included in the Pixel Watch 2.

Google will officially be at I/O 2024, and the new software is packed with useful updates. The user interface is largely the same as Wear OS 4, but the software has been optimized to improve battery life by up to 30%. There are new health monitoring features, including stride length analysis when walking or running.

The operating system includes some efficiency improvements, with Google saying that Wear OS 5 uses 20% less power than OS 4, for example. There’s also a software update and additional options for watch faces. This software update doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but the added efficiency will certainly be a boon to many consumers.

There’s also no word on when the OS will be coming to Samsung’s older smartwatches. We’ll have to wait and see. For now, you’ll have to pay $300 for the Galaxy Watch 7 or $650 for the Ultra to get the OS.

Find all the news from Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2024 here!