Samsung Google smartwatch OS at MWC 2021: One UI on top

By Chris Burns/June 28, 2021 1:03 pm EST

There's a new Samsung Galaxy Watch device coming from Samsung here in 2021, a device that'll be the first to run software developed jointly by Google and Samsung. It'll run its own Samsung-specific iteration of that software: A user experience called One UI Watch. As a Samsung representative said today, "One UI Watch will be available for Galaxy Watch on the new, unified platform [Samsung] jointly built with Google."

Samsung confirmed this week that "its upcoming Galaxy Watch" will be the first to run both "the new unified platform and One UI Watch." This new device and the software will be revealed in full at a separate Samsung event "later this summer."

Google released their wearables operating system back in March of 2014. The first hardware partners were announced at Google I/O 2021, with LG, Motorola, and Samsung as the first manufacturers to release smartwatches with Wear OS. The year 2014 also saw Samsung release the Samsung Gear 2, running a wearable version of Tizen.

Here in 2021, Samsung and Google teamed up to bring Wear OS (or whatever they'll end up calling it from this point forward) to Samsung watches. The software on the first new Samsung watch with Google's software inside will not look like Google software on other wearable devices. The video below is a full capture of the livestreamed event at MWC 2021 for Samsung. Watch from around 9:12 to see all the smartwatch details:

The average smartwatch wearer will not likely notice how Samsung and Google teamed up for software on this and future devices. The launch of this software and this watch will more than likely affect the average person via promotional efforts by Google and Samsung.

More important than any sort of software collaboration, here, is the power of the two brands together, and their public-facing efforts to engage prospective customers. Samsung is the biggest brand in Android in the United States right now – it is in Google's best interests that Samsung use Google software in their smartwatches, too.