Some have called it too colourful. Others have called it cartoonish. Say what you will about Samsung’s new user interface, dubbed One, but it is here to stay.
That much has been shown in the company’s persistence in rolling it out to as many devices as possible. From the high-end Samsung Galaxy S9, S9+ and Note 9 which shipped with the previous Grace UX to budget devices like the Samsung Galaxy J6, J6+ and J8. Their successors in the Galaxy A lineup, which go for as little as Kshs 10,000, arrive with the new interface out of the box.
Now, it is the turn of Samsung’s wearables, scattered across its Gear and Galaxy lineups, to get One UI.
According to an update change log pushed to the Samsung Galaxy Wearables app, which users on both Android and iOS use to sync their Samsung wearables, lists, among other things, the new Samsung user interface.
According to the change log, after installing the update, users of older Samsung smartwatches will get much more than a new user interface. They will also be getting a couple of new features, most of which Samsung introduced early this year with the Galaxy Watch Active, its latest smartwatch.
There are some of the new watch faces that launched with the Active and the Daily Active feature that also launched in Active.
There is also improved sleep and workout tracking, a workout profile for outdoor swimming, high heart rate alerts, the ability to turn on or off the device’s sleep mode, the ability to manage background apps, the ability to wake up the watches by just touching the display and the promise of better battery life.
The update targets 3 older Samsung smartwatches: Gear Sport, Gear S3 and Galaxy Watch.
That should be welcome news since Samsung’s latest premium wearable, Galaxy Watch Active, is a divisive device with many who loved Samsung’s previous rotating bezel design finding fault with its clean Apple Watch-esque design.
It is not clear if the Gear S2, which is also supported by the Galaxy Wearables app, will be seeing any One UI love.
