Samsung Reveals One UI Watch And Unified Platform

Samsung has just revealed a new watch interface that will grace upcoming Galaxy Watches. Called One UI Watch, it’s part of a new, uniformed platform that was jointly developed with Google. It provides seamless integration between your watch and Android smartphone. Through this, users will have greater access to applications from the Google Play Store.

“To unlock the full potential of these wearables, we’re leveraging our long legacy of mobile innovations and our partnerships with trusted industry leaders who have grown with us in our open ecosystem,” said Patrick Chomet, EVP and Head of Customer Experience Office, Mobile Communications Business at Samsung Electronics.

Once you install a watch compatible app on your smartphone, they will also make their way to your Galaxy Watch as well. For example, if you’ve customized your clock app on your phone to show the time for various cities, the same will be reflected on your smartwatch. And if you block calls and messages from your watch, the same actions will take place on your phone.

Samsung says, “The unified platform will open up new features and integrations with popular third-party apps available to download from Google Play directly on your Galaxy Watch.” It doesn’t matter if you’re fitness fanatic or have a penchant for classic music, the company is working with various partners to bring the best apps to your wrist.

“Samsung and Google have a long history of collaboration and whenever we’ve worked together,” said Sameer Samat, Vice President of Product Management, Android and Wear, Google. “We’re thrilled to bring longer battery life, faster performance, and a wide range of apps, including many from Google to a whole new wearable experience.”

In addition to this, Samsung will introduce an improved watch face design tool to make it easier for designers to create watch faces. It is supposed to offer better flexibility and enable them to create “fun” new designs that Samsung may add to its growing collection of watch faces.

The upcoming Galaxy Watch will be the first ever device from Samsung to feature One UI Watch and the unified platform. It is slated for release sometime in the next few months. This casts some uncertainty over the prospect of Samsung choosing WearOS instead of Tizen to power its smartwatches. The unified platform could be a bridge between two of them.

We will know more about Samsung’s Unpacked event scheduled to take place “later this summer” so stay tuned for more.