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The much-awaited Wear OS 3 update is finally here for Mobvoi’s TicWatch series smartwatches. The big update is rolling out to the TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS, TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra, TicWatch Pro 3 GPS, TicWatch Pro 3 LTE, and TicWatch E3 starting this month. It could take a while before the update reaches all eligible units worldwide.
Mobvoi announces Wear OS 3 update for five TicWatch models
Google announced Wear OS 3 in May 2021 as a major leap over the five-year-old Android Wear 2.0. The company worked closely with Samsung to completely overhaul its smartwatch platform, breathing a new life into Android wearables. The updated platform debuted with Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4 later that year. The Montblanc Summit 3 and Galaxy Watch 5 also ran Wear OS 3 out of the box, while Fossil updated its watches to the new platform last year.
Mobvoi, meanwhile, took forever to release Wear OS 3 for its watches. The company attributed this delay to the use of Qaulcomm’s Snapdragon Wear 4100 chipset and a proprietary dual-system architecture (Mobvoi coprocessor), which required major architecture upgrades. In July this year, it announced a Wear OS 3 beta program for the five TicWatch models. Almost six months later, the firm has finally started pushing the big update to the devices globally.
The company says your TicWatch must run the firmware build number PMRB.220703.001, PMKB.211102.004, PMKB.211102.002, or PMRL.220704.001 to receive the Wear OS 3 update. You can check for updates directly from the watch. Note that the wearable no longer requires the current Mobvoi app and the Google Wear OS app on your phone after this update. You can unpair the watch from these apps and delete the apps.
You have to download a new app, though. On Android, the app is called Mobvoi Health, while it is called Health Copilot on iOS. If you are facing connection issues following the Wear OS 3 upgrade, unpair your TicWatch from your phone’s Bluetooth settings and try again. Mobvoi watches running Wear OS 3 are only compatible with phones running Android 8/iOS 16 and higher. The company says it has “no news to share” about Wear OS 4 for its watches.
This update will perform a factory reset on your watch
While Wear OS 3 brings a ton of new features and improvements to your TicWatch Pro 3 or TicWatch E3 model, the update will perform a factory reset on your watch. This is because the new Wear OS is a generational leap over the current platform. It will also delete all third-party apps and data. Mobvoi says data associated with the TicHealth, TicSleep, and TicExercise apps will be retained and seamlessly synchronized with the new companion app.
Some in-house Mobvoi apps, such as Voicememo and TicHearing, will not be retained, though. They aren’t compatible with Wear OS 3, so you can’t download them later. Likewise, you may not be able to download some third-party apps. You will also lose Google Assistant, while iPhone users will lose Google Maps and Google Wallet as well. Some features will stop working too, including button customization for the bottom right button.