Samsung is promising a respectable amount of time for updates on its new Galaxy Watch 7 and Galaxy Watch Ultra, and that’s good news for anyone planning to invest money in either of the new smartwatches. Which, by the way, you can already pre-order. Samsung officially announced the Galaxy Watch 7 and Galaxy Watch Ultra today at its Galaxy Unpacked event.
And while there are lots of exciting new features to talk about, there’s another important area that users are going to want to pay attention to. The timing of software updates. The last thing you want is to buy a new smart device and have it become obsolete in a couple of years. Even at the reasonable $299 starting price of the Galaxy Watch 7, that’s still a lot of money to spend for the device to kick the bucket two years down the road.
You can certainly keep your old smartwatches for longer than that. I have, and it’s not posed a major issue thus far. Having said that, the longer you can receive updates for a smartwatch, the better. As these software updates can bring not only new features but improved security and stability too.
The Galaxy Watch 7 and Galaxy Watch Ultra will get updates for 4 years
Samsung has confirmed that both watches will get updates for 4 years. So you can rest assured that any important improvements will be available to you for a while should you decide to buy one. The company doesn’t specify what these updates will include. Chances are though, this means security and feature updates throughout this time period.
It’s also likely that there will be at least one major Wear OS revision during the 4-year update lifespan. However, this isn’t something Samsung specifically stated. What’s more, is that any major Wear OS version updates could depend on whether or not either watch will have the hardware to support them. As has been the case with some smartwatches that didn’t get the updates to Wear OS 3 or Wear OS 4.
Some features may not be available at launch
Another thing to consider with regard to the 4 years of updates is new features. Specifically, some might not be available right at launch. In the past, Samsung had announced new smartwatches coming with features that weren’t available out of the box. The Galaxy Watch 4 series comes to mind, which would go through some months post-launch before seeing things like Google Assistant and Google Wallet access.
This could very well be the case with the Galaxy Watch 7 and Galaxy Watch Ultra. Although Samsung may end up holding back on announcing certain features to avoid users hoping to get them before they’re ready. Whatever the case, 4 years of updates is a good thing. Because it means buyers can keep their watches fresh and continue to use them for longer periods of time. And that means not having to spend hundreds of dollars more on a new watch in half that time.
2024-07-10 15:05:29