We have some good news for TicWatch Pro 3 and TicWatch E3 owners, as those two smartwatches are set to receive the Wear OS 3.0 update.
A source close to the matter told Wareable that Mobvoi's TicWatch Pro 3 and the TicWatch E3 watches will be upgraded to the new Wear OS. For the uninitiated, that's the new unified OS built by Google and Samsung (with Fitbit's fitness tracking) which is set to debut on the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 this year.
Update 23/07/2021: And that's now been formally acknowledged by Google in a support forum update.
However, there will be a wait. According to our source, the software roll-out to those TicWatches won't happen until the end of this year – or early in 2022.
It's good news when there still remains so much uncertainty from both Google and its hardware partners. So far, there's been no official confirmation whether current watches will be able to support the new version of Wear, which is absurd when the TicWatch E3 was only launched last month.
So far, Fossil has been the only partner to confirm its current Wear OS watches will not be upgradeable to Wear OS 3.0, although it will be launching its Gen 6 watch on the new platform.
We approached Suunto for comment about whether its Suunto 7 Wear watch would be updated, but it couldn't confirm whether that update would happen.
Qualcomm, who provides the chipsets powering smartwatches running Wear OS, has stated that current Wear watches running on its Snapdragon 3100 and 4100 processors are technically capable of running Wear OS 3.0.
It said it was actively looking to to bring the experience to watches that run on the Wear 4100 platform.
That Wear 4100 platform is something that both the TicWatch Pro 3 and the E3 have in common. It might play a part as to why these two smartwatches will be upgradeable and it may point to hardware limitations as one of the reasons that current Wear watches might not be capable of getting that update.
Google has not said a great deal on the subject either and recently issued the following statement:
"User experience is a top priority for us. We have not confirmed eligibility or timeline on whether any Wear OS smartwatch will update to the new unified platform. There are many technical requirements in order to run the unified platform that ensures all components of the user experience are optimized."
For now, TicWatch Pro 3 an E3 owners can at least be glad to hear that they won't miss out on those big new features being promised with new Wear. Now it's over to the likes of Casio, Suunto, Oppo, Montblanc, Tag Heuer and Louis Vuitton to see if they too will be joining the new Wear party.
How we test
By Michael Sawh
Michael Sawh has been covering the wearable tech industry since the very first Fitbit landed back in 2011. Previously the resident wearable tech expert at Trusted Reviews, he also marshaled the features section of T3.com.
He also regularly contributed to T3 magazine when they needed someone to talk about fitness trackers, running watches, headphones, tablets, and phones.
Michael writes for GQ, Wired, Coach Mag, Metro, MSN, BBC Focus, Stuff, TechRadar and has made several appearances on the BBC Travel Show to talk all things tech.
Michael is a lover of all things sports and fitness-tech related, clocking up over 15 marathons and has put in serious hours in the pool all in the name of testing every fitness wearable going. Expect to see him with a minimum of two wearables at any given time.