The Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic will be Samsung’s first smartwatches in many years to be based on an operating system other than Tizen OS. They’ll run Google’s Wear OS with a fresh version of One UI for smartwatches on top, so unlike previous Galaxy wearables, the upcoming series will reportedly support the Google Assistant.
In fact, according to a recent tweet by @_snoopytech_, the Galaxy Watch 4 series will support both the Google Assistant and Samsung’s Bixby virtual assistant. This bit of detail is supported further by yesterday’s leaked spec sheet, and it’s a pretty big deal.
Up until now, the Galaxy Watch series only offered Bixby out of the box. The Google Assistant was not available through legitimate means, and Amazon’s Alexa is available through an app from the Play Store, though the implementation leaves a lot to be desired.
Time will tell if users will be able to change the default assistant
Even if the Galaxy Watch 4 series will come pre-loaded with Google Assistant and Bixby, as yet, there’s no evidence to confirm whether or not users will have the option to choose a default virtual assistant between the two.
It could be that Bixby will be activated by default without an option to pick Google Assistant as the main virtual helper, or it could be that Samsung will allow Galaxy Watch 4 customers to determine which assistant gets priority over the other.
But given that Samsung was willing to shelve Tizen in favor of a deeper collaboration with Google on Wear OS, it’s very likely that Galaxy Watch 4 / Classic owners will have the option of picking their default assistants. We’ll keep you posted as more details come out. Until then, feel free to let us know if you favor Tizen over Google Assistant or the other way around.
