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Key Takeaways

  • Google could be planning to end Google Assistant support on Wear OS 2 devices, as indicated by code found in a recent app update.
  • This news might disappoint those still using Wear OS 2 smartwatches, but Google has not made an official announcement yet.
  • Over time, older Wear OS watches have experienced issues and slowdowns, and newer hardware options provide a better user experience.

While Wear OS 4 smartwatches start to arrive to market like the Galaxy Watch 6, it looks like Google is ready to close out an old chapter by pulling Google Assistant support on Wear OS 2 devices. Although the company has not officially announced anything yet, code found in the latest Wear OS companion app update, version 2.65.11.552438494, indicates that the brand could be looking to move forward with such plans in the near future.

The folks at 9to5Google discovered the news by deep diving into the code of the latest update, extracting the information, and giving users an early heads up of what's to come. As far as what the code contains, there's a string that states: “Google Assistant support on this watch is ending soon. Please upgrade to a newer watch that supports Google Assistant and runs Wear OS 3 or later.”

This is, of course, is going to be sad news for anyone still using a Wear OS 2 smartwatch, but as stated before, Google has yet to announce anything formally, which means it's really anyone's guess as to when the company will officially put this into effect. Now if you've been using an older Wear OS watch, chances are, you've probably experienced some issues and slowdowns over time. While Google has continued to support it in some fashion, it has been five years since the initial release of Wear OS 2.

Although this doesn't sound like that long, it's mainly the hardware of that time that's really aged poorly, especially smartwatches with less RAM. With that said the hardware has improved dramatically, with companies utilizing more powerful and efficient components to provide a better experience. As far as the state of wearables now, Google has released newer versions of Wear OS, with version 3 arriving in 2021, and Wear OS 3.5 coming a year later.

Of course, this year we already have Wear OS 4, and while hanging onto older smartwatches is certainly a thing, this might be the perfect time to move on, with a wide range of great choices being available when it comes to Wear OS wearables.