Galaxy Watch 4's One UI 8 Watch update mystery has been solved

Four years ago, Samsung took a bold step by ditching Tizen OS and adopting Wear OS for Galaxy Watches. The first Samsung smartwatches to run Wear OS were the Galaxy Watch 4 and the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic. However, there was confusion regarding them getting the One UI 8 Watch update.

Samsung has now solved that mystery.

When Samsung opened the One UI 8 Watch Beta Program, it revealed that it would be open for the Galaxy Watch 5 and newer models in select markets. The company has now confirmed that the Galaxy Watch 4 and the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic will indeed get the One UI 8 Watch update. This should make Galaxy Watch 4 users happy.

This will be the last major software update for these four-year-old smartwatches, which launched with Wear OS 3-based One UI Watch 3 software onboard.

The Galaxy Watch 4 series uses the 4nm Exynos W920 chip with only two Cortex-A55 CPU cores, so it remains to be seen how well One UI 8 Watch runs on the smartwatches. Google claims Wear OS 6 brings improved performance and efficiency, resulting in 10% longer battery life.

One UI 8 Watch brings a major UI redesign, featuring more advanced and feature-rich watch faces, smoother animations and transitions, a new design language for Tiles, and the ability to add more Tiles on a single screen. It also brings a newer vertical grid layout and list view for the app launcher. The app launcher can also display featured (most used) apps at the top.

The Now Bar feature is also coming to Galaxy Watches with the One UI 8 Watch update. It displays ongoing activities like Samsung Health workouts, stopwatch, timer, and more. The battery icon and charging animations have also been redesigned. Watch how the new software could look in our Galaxy Watch 8 series hands-on video below.

Notifications also have a new design language in One UI 8 Watch. Notifications from the same app will appear stacked. Moreover, notifications are now smarter. If you are using the phone, the notifications will not appear on the watch, and vice versa. There are more double pinch and handshake gestures.

The new software also brings four new health features—Antioxidant Index, Bedtime Guidance, Running Coach, and Vascular Load—but they will likely not be available on the Galaxy Watch 4 series. You can read the full One UI 8 Watch changelog here.