YouTube Music’s new Wear OS App seems to be rolling out on a handful of older smartwatches after it exclusively launched on Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4, which is powered by Wear OS 3.
Even after reports said the app wouldn’t launch on older devices, it appears YouTube Music’s Wear OS app will now be compatible with Wear OS2 smartwatches. According to Google, this currently includes the likes of Fossil, Mobvoi, and Michael Kors. Google says more OS 2 watches will be compatible with the app later this year. Of course, the app can be downloaded from the Google Play store on any compatible device.
YouTube Music’s Wear OS app allows YouTube Music Premium users to download music and listen to it offline, without the need for a paired phone. At the moment, however, there’s no way to stream music with the app, and you can only download and listen to music offline. It’s definitely a bit limited, but being able to listen to music with just a watch and a pair of Bluetooth headphones is certainly a nice perk. You can play music through the watch’s speakers as well, but the app encourages the use of Bluetooth headphones. Here’s a bit more on how the app functions from 9to5google,
“Importantly, downloads can only happen when the watch is on a charger — there’s no way to do it otherwise. The app will also default to downloading solely on Wi-Fi, but you can toggle that if you wish. There’s a “Smart Downloads” feature in the Settings, which can be customized to download between 50 and 500 songs, depending on how much storage you have available. There’s also a toggle for “Restricted Mode” that filters out explicit content and a “Privacy & Location” page that exists only to tell you to deal with that on your phone.”
The exact watches with added support right now are Fossil and Michal Kor’s Gen 6, as well as Mobvoi’s TicWatch Pro 3 GPS, TicWatch Pro 3 Cellular / LTE, and TicWatch E3.
