What you need to know
- Samsung is rolling out new firmware for Galaxy Watch 3 in the European regions.
- It brings two new watch faces from Galaxy Watch 6 to the TizenOS-powered smartwatch.
- The rollout is expected to extend to the Galaxy Watch Active 2.
As promised, Samsung wants to keep the Galaxy Watch 3 alive as much as possible with new features to match the existing Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 5 series. After pushing a new update to the Watch 3 last year, Samsung brings yet another update that brings new watch faces from the One UI 5 Watch.
As noted by SamMobile, the Galaxy Watch 3 is receiving new firmware in the European region bearing R840XXU1DWK2/R850XXU1DWK2 versions with two new watch faces: Stretched Time and Perpetual. These watch faces are the latest additions from the current One UI 5 Watch version, which debuted with the Galaxy Watch 6 and was later added to the Watch 5 and Watch 4 series.
An interesting element of this new update is that, unlike the latter models that ship with One UI out of the box, the Galaxy Watch 3 is powered by Tizen OS. Yet, the Galaxy Watch 6 goodies from the One UI 5 are featured on the Watch 3, as promised by Samsung earlier this year.
The company notably updated the smartwatch back in September 2022 following the launch of the One UI 4.5 Watch software. The previous major update to Galaxy Watch 3 brought Pro analog and Gradient number watch faces borrowed from the then-released Galaxy Watch 5. It further got snore detection as a health feature.
While the recent update brings the fancy watch faces from One UI 5, the Tizen OS still bears version 5.5.0.2, notes SamMobile. It further notes that the Galaxy Watch Active 2 will likely follow the same path, possibly with the next firmware update. For those unaware, the Galaxy Watch 3 was released in 2020, and the Active 2 was released in 2019. Even though the company moved to Wear OS completely, Samsung is doing a commendable job bringing fancy features to the older generation smartwatches.
Following the Watch 5, the Galaxy Watch 6 provides an upgraded Exynos chip, much more RAM, and improved capacity bezels. The device is the perfect partner for daily notifications and health monitoring.
