The biggest Wear OS announcement from earlier today at Google I/O is without question the confirmation from Google that it is finally making a Pixel Watch. Our attention is mostly focused on that news alone at the moment, but Google did share news surrounding its other partners in the wearable space.
On a single slide and for all of 3 seconds, Google said that there will be new Wear OS watches this summer from partners including Fossil, Montblanc, TAG Heuer, and Mobvoi, as well as watches from the various Fossil group line-up, like Skagen and Hublot and Michael Kors.
I think it’s safe to assume that those will all be powered by Wear OS 3 out of the box, possibly with their own unique software experiences or at least with upgraded hardware. If anything, I just hope it saves folks from having to go through the process of fully wiping watches that Google described last year.
You have to feel a bit for anyone who bought a Fossil Gen 6 or Mobvoi watch in recent months. While we still believe those are scheduled for an upgrade, I can’t help but worry that the process of switching from Wear OS 2 to Wear OS 3 will be troublesome. If you are considering any current watch, you should probably hold off for now. Just wait until Fossil shows off its new devices or Google’s tells us what exactly we can buy the Pixel Watch.
Oh, and yeah, don’t forget about the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 line.