Strava Is Leaving Older Android Smartwatches within the Dust

Samsung and Google’s upgraded smartwatch platform, Wear OS 3, is an thrilling launch for Android customers. It’s the primary time in years the wearables platform has felt like a cohesive ecosystem, helped partially by the launch of Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic, that are the primary watches to run Wear OS 3.

Now that watches working the brand new platform are right here, some well-known apps are pushing out updates to turn into appropriate. But the consequence has left some older smartwatches within the mud.

Strava, a social app for monitoring working and biking, has provided a standalone model of its app for Wear OS customers since 2017. The watch app enables you to observe your exercise in your wrist with out your smartphone in tow. Strava just lately up to date its Wear OS app to assist Wear OS 3, however the corporate added a caveat on its support page: Older Wear OS watches will not obtain Strava software program updates.

In an announcement to Android Police, which was tipped off by a reader to the change, Strava doubled down on its transfer away from the legacy wearables software program:

Last week we launched a brand new Strava app for Wear OS 3.0. Moving forward we gained’t be releasing new updates to our app for Wear 2.XX — however Strava will proceed to be out there and can proceed to work on Wear 2.XX. All new updates might be made to the Strava app for Wear OS 3.0.

Strava will proceed to perform, however it can not obtain new options. It’s unclear if an analogous destiny will befall the model of Strava for older Tizen-based Galaxy Watches. Regardless, Strava’s newest transfer may sign a shift for Wear OS apps. Older Android smartwatches may be outta luck in relation to app updates, and a few apps may stop to perform altogether.

Google has already listed the smartwatches that might be appropriate with Wear OS 3 when it rolls out extra broadly in 2022. That listing consists of Mobvoi’s GPS and LTE TicWatch Pro 3, the TicWatch E3, future TicWatch units, in addition to the subsequent era of Fossil smartwatches. Google has additionally stated the present model of Wear OS isn’t going anyplace, no less than till extra customers acquired the improve or {hardware} that might accommodate it. Google even stated it was dedicated to bringing “new app experiences” to Wear OS 2. But it’s exhausting to justify sticking with an older Android smartwatch if some big-name apps are already planning to go away it behind.

Migrating a mass of customers from one platform to a different isn’t simple. Although Google was transparent about how it could be altering course with Wear OS 3, it additionally made it appear to be customers may take their time earlier than upgrading. But if app builders select to go all in with Wear OS 3 earlier than extra next-gen Android watches are even out there, then the transition may be bumpier than anticipated.