There was a time in the world of Wear OS when all we could think about was when non-Samsung devices would get a major update to Wear OS 3. Our main focus last year was on Fossil because they’ve been around for a long time. they were the biggest name in the game and really the only ones to make Wear OS watches. And then their Fossil Gen 6 line got Wear OS 3, then they updated their other watch brands, and all was well.

This post, as you can tell from the title, is not about Fossil. Fossil released updates for Wear OS 3 back in October 2022. Instead, it’s about Mobvoi and their terrible support for their own watches, who were promised an update to Wear OS 3 but still haven’t received it in May 2023.

To back up for a second, keep in mind that Google first announced Wear OS 3 in May 2021 as a sort of partnership with Samsung to relaunch the platform. Samsung then put Wear OS 3 on its Galaxy Watch 4 line, going back to Google’s wearable platform, and then holding onto what we believe was exclusive to that OS for a year. We think it’s because Google has told all of its partners that they won’t be able to ship Wear OS 3 on their watches until at least 2022.

Fast forward and we’ll get back to talking about Mobvoi. You see, Mobvoi has three watch models that they were going to install Wear OS 3 on – TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra, TicWatch Pro 3 and TicWatch E3. Google recognized them as capable in July 2021, but here we are.

Today, the company tweeted a statement “sincerely acknowledging your concern and understanding that you may be disappointed” by the fact that your watch did not receive the promised update to Wear OS 3. They further apologized and confirmed that the update is indeed still on the way. in development for all these watches. The statement also mentions that this watch is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 4100 and uses a proprietary dual-system architecture that appears to have increased the time it takes to complete this major update. It’s a bit like blaming Qualcomm, but they don’t quite go there.

From there, the statement says that they plan to open an “extensive closed beta test” for their Wear OS 3-enabled watches “soon” and will announce how you can participate. So, again, it’s May 2023 and Mobvoi has just started closed beta testing for Wear OS 3, an update that Google says everyone can release in the second half of 2022, which is what Fossil did. Keep in mind that the new Mobvoi TicWatch Pro 5 should be here any moment now and we assume they will have Wear OS 3 already.

Shish.