Wear OS 4 may finally allow you to switch phones without factory resetting your watch

Google recently released its Wear OS 4 Beta software and Samsung was quick to integrate its One UI 5 Watch beta for its Galaxy Watch4 and Watch5 series, so people can get familiar with the changes before the final version of the software hits the masses. One of the most interesting new changes to Wear OS may be the ability to change phones without having to reset your watch.

The current Wear OS 3.5 version and Samsung's corresponding One UI Watch 4.5 version force you to factory reset your smartwatch every time you change your phone, which is quite annoying. Although the software allows you to back up your settings and preferences fully, some things like third-party watch faces and the icon arrangement in the app drawer are lost in the process.

Well, in the beta version of One UI Watch 5, that's no longer needed. Once you start the transferring process to a different phone, a prompt will ask you if the Google account on your watch matches the one on the new smartphone.

It's perhaps important to note that this functionality has been tested on a Galaxy Watch5, so devices running the vanilla Wear OS 4 may not get it. Still, we believe this is core functionality, so there's a good chance everyone will get it.

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