Qualcomm Gives Hope to Older 3100/4100 Watches for New Wear OS (Updated)

There is a heavy amount of stress in the world of Wear OS watches at the moment now that Google has announced (with Samsung) the next version of Wear that will lead us into our Android wearable future. As cool as the new Wear OS 3.0 may end up being, all of the old watches launched prior to Google’s new Wear announcement have an unclear future. Today, Qualcomm attempted to give all of those watches a bit of hope without fully confirming their fate.

You see, almost every single Wear OS watch currently on the market runs a Qualcomm chip. The watch on your wrist or that you are considering buying at the moment either runs a Snapdragon Wear 2100, Wear 3100, or Wear 4100. Qualcomm makes all of those and so we’ve been waiting for them to tell us if these chips will work with the new Wear OS 3.0.

In a statement given to XDA, Qualcomm has acknowledged that they are working with Google to gain support for the new Wear OS on the Wear 4100 and its 4100+ relative. They even acknowledged that each chip (including the Wear 3100) is fully capable of running on the new Wear, but they weren’t ready to talk about whether or not their partners would be updating watches to it:

We are working with Google on bringing Wear OS 3.0 to Snapdragon Wear 4100+ and 4100 platforms. Snapdragon Wear 3100, 4100+ and 4100 platforms are capable of supporting Wear OS 3.0, but we are not discussing any specifics at this time.

Breaking that down, it sounds here like Qualcomm and Google will likely get the new Wear to work on the Snapdragon Wear 4100 and 4100+ platforms. While they acknowledged the new Wear OS 3.0 could theoretically work on the 3100, they didn’t say it’s currently in their plans, at least in this statement.

So what does this mean? Well, nothing is guaranteed, so if you are looking at watches, it better be running the Wear 4100 or 4100+ chip. There are exactly two watches with those, the Mobvoi TicWatch Pro 3 and newly announced TicWatch E3 (pictured above). But keep in mind that Qualcomm didn’t confirm they will get the new Wear, only that they are working with Google to try to make it happen.

• UPDATE 6/17: Google has responded to Qualcomm with a statement that doesn’t exactly agree with what Qualcomm said. You can read the full statement here.

Every other Wear OS watch should be ignored, unless you care absolutely zero about updates. We told you this just the other week. Also, Fossil already confirmed that their older watches aren’t going to receive the update.

This is a bit of good news at least. However, no promises were made here, so until we know for sure, consider our advice.