Samsung is about to sunset Galaxy Store support for its Tizen smartwatch OS. The affected devices include Galaxy Watches released before the Galaxy Watch 4 (August 2021) – the Galaxy Watch Active, Galaxy Watch Active 2, Galaxy Gear, Galaxy Watch, and the Galaxy Watch 3. These watches use Tizen OS.
Samsung is about to sunset the Tizen smartwatch OS as it no longer uses it
As you can see, Samsung has not been applying its Tizen OS to Galaxy Watches for quite a while. Reddit user Seaweed_Maximum has shed light on Samsung’s termination schedule for Galaxy Store access for Tizen smartwatches. The Redditor shared screenshots of the notice originally posted by a member of the Galaxy Store Operations team. It provides a timeline for Samsung’s termination plans that you can see below.
Starting September 30, 2024, Galaxy Store will stop selling paid Tizen Watch content. It includes apps, watch faces, and more. Starting May 31, 2025, Galaxy Store will stop allowing new downloads of free Tizen watch content. Finally, starting from September 30, 2025, the “My Apps” section in the Galaxy Store will stop allowing re-downloads, effectively ending the ability to access any further paid or free Tizen content.
The company also mentioned that the core services related to these watches will stop everywhere except the Galaxy Store after May 2025. The Tizen developer portal also no longer allows new Tizen watch apps or updates.
For users who are using the above-mentioned wearables running on Tizen OS, you will soon face restrictions in how you can enjoy your functional hardware. However, you will have one year to enjoy the core services and some more months on top of that for downloading existing purchased items in the Galaxy Store.
Users looking for an upgrade may wait for the Galaxy Watch 7 series
The latest Tizen OS-powered smartwatch, the Galaxy Watch 3, was released in August 2020. Users with the Galaxy Watch 3 or an older Tizen smartwatch are probably already looking for an upgrade. Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 6 was launched with Google’s Wear OS 4 in July last year. It could be a good upgrade to your Tizen-powered Galaxy Watch. The device equips the Exynos W930 (5 nm) chip and a high-resolution 480 x 480 pixel super AMOLED display. Also, the Galaxy Watch 7 series is expected to launch soon (possibly in July, this year). So you can wait for that.
