Zac Kew-Denniss / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Samsung will seemingly provide the Galaxy Watch 9 and Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 with five major OS upgrades and five years of security patches.
- The watches launch with One UI 9n Watch based on Wear OS 7, and you can expect software support until 2031.
- This marks the best software update commitment in the smartwatch industry, beating the likes of Pixel Watch and Apple Watch.
According to a report from SamMobile, the new Galaxy Watch 9 and Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 will receive five major OS upgrades and five years of security patches. The new watches launch with One UI 9 Watch based on Wear OS 7, and you can expect software support until 2031.
This is an upgrade over the previous generation of Samsung Galaxy watches. Since the Galaxy Watch 4, Samsung has offered four OS upgrades and five years of security patches. This, by itself, had put Samsung as the pack leader on the Android side of the river, as the competing Pixel Watch offers only a three-year OS upgrade commitment. The newer update commitment extends Samsung’s lead and matches the roughly five years of watchOS upgrades Apple rolls out for Apple Watch — though note that Apple makes no commitment beforehand, and recent watchOS 27 betas have unexpectedly left several older Apple Watches behind.
As of now, Samsung hasn’t said whether older Galaxy Watch models, such as the Galaxy Watch 8, Galaxy Watch 8 Classic, or Galaxy Watch Ultra, will also be graced with this extended software support. You shouldn’t hold your breath on it, though, as the older Galaxy Watches come with an Exynos SoC, and the newer Galaxy Watch 9 and Watch Ultra 2 come with the Snapdragon Wear Elite processor — so it’s no longer a given that software updates can be easily ported across.
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