How to update your Samsung smartwatch

Samsung has been relentlessly pushing updates to its smartwatches – and if you haven't checked for updates recently you could be missing out on some brilliant new features.

Recent updates to the Galaxy Watch 3 and Galaxy Watch Active 2 have brought blood pressure monitoring, ECG and some swanky new running metrics, handwashing features and SmartThings Find.

If you want your Sammy smartwatch run those latest features you'll need to make sure it's properly updated. This is usually done via an Over The Air update or OTA update. Essentially, a software update that will update everything that needs to be.

We've obviously spent a large amount of experience living with Samsung smartwatches, so it's fair to say we know our way around updating them.

If you're struggling to know how to get it done, we breakdown everything you need to know about updating the latest Samsung Galaxy smartwatches.

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How to update your Samsung Galaxy smartwatch

The process of updating a Samsung smartwatch should remain largely the same across the board. Additionally, you have the option to perform an update from your phone or directly from your smartwatch.

In this piece will be focusing mainly on how to update on the Samsung Galaxy Watch and the Galaxy Watch Active smartwatches, but it should largely apply to Gear smartwatches as well.

Step-by-step: Update Samsung smartwatch from phone

1: Open the Samsung Galaxy Wearable app on the phone that's paired with your Samsung smartwatch.

2: Go to the Home tab and scroll down until you see Watch software update. Tap to select.

3: Tap Download and install and a quick check will see if there are any updates to download. You will either get a message saying the software is up to date or offer a prompt that an update is available. If there is, tap to start the installation process. Be sure to keep your watch and phone both in close proximity.

Additional information: If you prefer to have the updates automatically installed, you can choose to auto download over a Wi-Fi network from the Watch software update screen we described above. You will of course need to make sure that your phone and watch is connected over a Wi-Fi connection to make that possible.

Update Samsung Galaxy Watch smartwatch from watch

Step 1: On your watch, go to the app screen and look for the settings icon.

Step 2: Scroll through until you find About menu and scroll to Software to see if there's an update available.

Update Samsung Gear smartwatch from watch

Step 1: On your watch, go to the app screen and look for the settings icon.

Step 2: Scroll through until you find General menu. Select update watch software to check if there are any updates available. Again, you'll need to make sure you're on a Wi-Fi connection to perform the update.

What should happen when an update is taking place?

Usually, you can expect your smartwatch to reboot itself as it starts updating the software on board. The duration of the update time can vary and will depend on the nature and size of the update. Generally in our experience, it's something that doesn't take an arduous amount of time.

So, it's thankfully a really straightforward process of getting your Samsung smartwatch updated, whether you do it from your phone or on the watch itself.