Wear OS 5 for the original Pixel Watch and Pixel Watch 2 was pulled after some users had their devices soft brick, with Google today providing an update on what’s happening.
While most Pixel Watch and Pixel Watch 2 owners successfully installed Wear OS 5, others encountered a black screen. The fix requires a factory reset through Fastboot, which wipes user data and requires them to set-up their wearables again. Backups lessen the impact of that process.
Google on Thursday evening provided an “Update for WearOS 5 Expansion”. The company reconfirmed the “stuck on a blank screen” issue and that the OTA was paused on September 26, or two days after release. (The manual factory and OTA images were pulled at that time.) Links to support articles were provided:
Looking ahead, Google plans to “resume the WearOS 5 rollout to these devices later this year, once we’ve mitigated the observed issues.” That timeframe is later than expected, with Google “actively working on a resolution.”
It’s unclear whether this pause is going to impact updates, like the October security patch, for Pixel Watch, 2, and 3 devices already on Wear OS 5.
There was no Pixel Watch OTA this Monday, though Google could be waiting to release it alongside the Android 15 update for phones. Alternatively, all watch updates are impacted until a fix is in place.
That said, most new features for the Pixel Watch come via app updates from the Play Store. For example, Google this week released battery full notifications and a new charging screen.
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