Samsung is probably launching Wear OS 5 beta for Galaxy Watch soon

Ben Schoon | May 26 2024 - 11:06 am PT

Google announced Wear OS 5 at I/O earlier this month and, as per usual, the update is likely to make its debut on Galaxy smartwatches first. And, right on schedule, there are signs of life for Wear OS 5 on Galaxy Watch popping up ahead of a One UI Watch 6 beta program.

Since the debut of Wear OS 3, Samsung has been first in line for any new updates. The latest version generally debuts on the latest Galaxy Watch before later arriving on Pixel Watch and, eventually, watches from other brands.

Last year, Wear OS 4 made its debut first in the “One UI Watch 5” beta. That program, which was supposed to arrive in May 2023, ended up actually launching in early June for the Galaxy Watch 4 and 5. The update then rolled out to all users in August following the Galaxy Watch 6 launch.

It seems that schedule will remain in place this year.

Twitter/X user @theordysm posted a picture of a Samsung forum page for the “One UI Watch 6” beta. The page is sparse right now and without any concrete details, but its existence of it and the timing at which it popped up suggests that Samsung is following a similar pattern to last year.

When will this beta program launch?

That’s still up in the air, but it could be as soon as the next week or two. If that happens, the beta program will likely be running for 2-3 months before Samsung widely rolls out the update to its existing Wear OS-based Galaxy Watch models. The update will probably be available out of the box on Galaxy Watch 7, the “Ultra” model having leaked earlier this week.