There's good news and bad news with OnePlus Watch 3 update schedule

OnePlus has offered clarification on its plans for updating its latest smartwatch, the OnePlus Watch 3, and it isn’t as bad as we feared.

Seeds of confusion were sown in a recent conversation with Android Central, when a OnePlus representative claimed that the company’s latest smartwatch would receive just two OS updates, and two years of bi-monthly security updates.

That would represent a significant step back from the three years of updates promised for the OnePlus Watch 2.

The reporting of this has prompted OnePlus to issue a corrective statement, and it’s good news for OnePlus Watch 3 owners… kind of.

OnePlus Watch update plans

OnePlus has issued a statement on the update plans for its most recent smartwatch.

“The OnePlus Watch 3 will receive 3 years of software updates (WearOS 5, 6 & 7), as well as 3 years of quarterly security updates; from 2025 until 2027,” reads the statement.

As OnePlus points out, this is an exact match for its OnePlus Watch 2 guarantee, albeit shifted forward a year to reflect their differing launch dates.

It’s not all good news

While this update promise isn’t as terrible as we initially feared, this isn’t all good news.

If you examine the language used by OnePlus, you’ll note that it cites Wear OS 5 as the first software update it will receive. However, as we confirmed in our recent review, the OnePlus Watch 3 already ships with Wear OS 5.0 straight out of the box.

This means that while OnePlus claims you’ll be getting three years of OS support, you’ll actually only be getting two major OS updates.

If Google stays on schedule, Wear OS 8.0 will be launching around August 2027 – well within OnePlus’s promised three year period, as well as within the span of its own “from 2025 until 2027” terminology. The Google Pixel Watch 3 has been promised support up to and including Wear OS 8.0, by contrast.

It seems more like an imprecise use of language rather than anything untoward, but it’s not a great look after the company’s initial typo snafu. Which is all very unfortunate, because the OnePlus Watch 3 is a very good Wear OS smartwatch.