Samsung's Wear OS 5 Is Headed To More Galaxy Watches And It's About Time

Fans of older Samsung Galaxy Watches are shouting a collective hurrah because Samsung is finally rolling out One UI 6 (a.k.a. Wear OS 5) to their devices as we speak. The update will begin over the coming weeks with the Galaxy Watch 6, then eventually down to the Galaxy Watch 4. The new wearable UI brings a host of new features and stability fixes, which should be a welcomed lease on life for the older watches.

If you happen to own a Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 and 6 Classic, Galaxy Watch FE, Galaxy Watch 5 and 5 Pro, plus Galaxy Watch 4 and 4 Classic, you're in for a treat. Samsung announced that it's finally updating these Wear OS watches with One UI 6, which is the company's skin over the latest Wear OS 5.

Up front, One UI 6 brings new factory watch faces and a revised double pinch gesture (moved into a more prominent location in Settings rather than locked under Accessibility settings before this). The gesture can then be customized to perform certain actions. For those using their watches with Galaxy phones and/or Galaxy Rings, there's better synergy between devices too, such as AI-generated "Suggested replies" 

With One UI 6, there's a stronger emphasis on health and fitness. The much-anticipated sleep apnea detection function is onboard after being cleared by the FDA, and so is Energy Score, which shows overall energy/recovery levels based off of your physical and exercise exertion. More in line with pure activity watches from Garmin and Coros, for example, the new UI introduces Workout Routine and Race features. With the former users can create custom workouts, whereas Race allows runners and cyclists to compare past and present workouts and make adjustments from there.

Prior to this announcement, only Samsung's latest watches like the Galaxy Watch Ultra rocked One UI 6. We came away highly impressed with the watches power efficiency, tank-like build, fantastic display, and above average monitoring. Thus, it's probably a good thing that cheaper and smaller Galaxy Watches are receiving the new OS, especially for folks who have lamenting over the Ultra's exorbitant price and size (but wanting most of its capabilities).