Samsung is rolling out new updates to the Galaxy Watch 3 and Galaxy Watch Active 2, its last two Tizen OS-based smartwatches. The aging wearables are getting a couple of new watch faces that the company introduced with the Wear OS 4-powered Galaxy Watch 6 series earlier this year. There are no additional features or changes.
Galaxy Watch 3 and Active 2 get new watch faces
In 2021, Samsung made a bold decision to stop making Tizen OS smartwatches. It switched to Wear OS, working closely with Google to breathe a new life into the Android-based wearable platform. Considering the rich app ecosystem of Wear OS, it was a good decision from the Korean firm. Tizen was going nowhere with its relatively poor app support.
Unfortunately, this change means it was the end of the road for Samsung’s older watches. The company was no longer heavily invested in Tizen and didn’t release many major feature updates for the likes of Galaxy Watch 3 and Galaxy Watch Active 2 after 2021. However, it has been pushing new watch faces to the duo once in a while.
In late 2021, the two watches received a few new watch faces Samsung introduced with the Galaxy Watch 4 series. It followed up with watch faces from the Galaxy Watch 5 series last year. The company also promised to roll out Galaxy Watch 6 faces to the Galaxy Watch 3 and Galaxy Watch Active 2. Those are now here with the latest update for the aging watches.
As promised, Samsung is pushing the “Stretched Time” and “Perpetual” watch faces to the duo. Introduced with the Galaxy Watch 6 series earlier this year, these faces have already made it to the Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 5 lineups with the Wear OS 4-based One UI 5 Watch update. You can see the two faces in the image attached below.
The update doesn’t bring new features
The latest update for the Galaxy Watch 3 comes with the firmware build number DWK2 or FWK2 (last four characters), depending on the connectivity variant—Bluetooth or LTE. That for the Galaxy Watch Active 2 is FWK2 or EWK2. Samsung’s official changelog states that the update brings stability and reliability improvements for watch sensors.
That is all they are getting, though. The update doesn’t contain any other changes. Both watches remain at Tizen OS version 5.5.0.2, which they picked up in early 2021. If you are currently using a Galaxy Watch 3 or Galaxy Watch Active 2, you can check for updates from the Galaxy Wearable app on your connected smartphone. It’s unclear if Samsung will push new watch faces from the Galaxy Watch 7 series to the duo next year. Chances are slim, though.
2023-12-28 15:06:03