My thoughts about Google’s Wear announcement

A few years ago I used to watch the Google I/O live and report about it on my Android-blog. Time has passed, I no longer blog about Android and I’m not a Google fan anymore.

But today there was an interesting announcement that I want to share some thoughts about: Wear OS.

When my digital watch from Casio broke a few years ago and I decided to try a smartwatch again (after my Sony SmartWatch 3 with Android Wear 1.0), after some consideration I decided to go with the Samsung Galaxy Watch.

Why?

For one, I quite like this watch aesthetically, but also Tizen somehow made the better impression. Long battery life, not this annoying Google Assistant and many fitness features.

But what I am still missing today: Google Pay. While I can pay with Google Pay on my smartphone, where my Visa cards are directly integrated, I can only use Samsung Pay on my watch since recently. However, Samsung Pay has the limitation in Germany that it is not possible to directly connect a credit card, but a separate bank account has to be set up and paid amounts are debited from the checking account via direct debit.

Of course, there are also significantly fewer apps for the Galaxy Watch, so I actually limit myself to the Samsung apps or do not use the watch as much as one could.

So I’m happy to hear that Google has sat down with Samsung and worked on uniting Tizen and Wear OS. Hopefully there will be the best of both worlds in the future.

I doubt Samsung will update my Galaxy Watch to the new platform, but my next watch might be one with Wear.

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