What you need to know
- Google confirmed that it has shut down the roll out of Wear OS 5 to the Pixel Watch and Pixel Watch 2 following severe user reports.
- Users updating have had their devices bricked by the update, losing functionality of it as a result.
- Google is working on a fix but, in the meantime, there are some reboot steps users can try to relieve their devices of the problem.
Google's two past-gen Pixel Watches have encountered unsightly problems following the Wear OS 5 update. Due to this, the company has reportedly paused its major software update for the original Pixel Watch and the Pixel Watch 2. Google confirmed as much to 9to5Google today (Sept 27). According to the post, the company says the software update has bricked some users' devices.
A Google spokesperson told the publication, "...in the meantime, we have paused the WearOS 5 rollout and are actively working on a resolution."
We've heard reports of these, courtesy of members from the Android Central forums. One user, goombah88, stated, "I just got the update and it bricked my PW2. I have a black screen with a Bluetooth symbol at the bottom with a line through it." The user continued, saying they lost swiping functionality and that long-pressing the crown to reboot/shutdown didn't help.
A follow-up comment from another user states their O.G. Pixel Watch took roughly four hours to complete the Wear OS 5 update from Tuesday (Sept 24). It doesn't seem as though their device locked up following the patch, which is something 9to5 stated, as well.
Not every device suffers from this problem; however, its existence for some is enough cause for concern.
While Google toils away at a potential fix for the Wear OS 5 issue, the publication cited a Google support page for fixing a "blank or frozen" Pixel Watch. This should relieve your device from any software-based problems. If it doesn't, Google's support line is your next course of action.
This development over the past three days is unfortunate considering past-gen Pixel Watch users have been waiting for Wear OS 5 all year. Google dropped the update on September 24, which included the monthly security patch. It was a major patch for devices rocking OS 3.5 or OS 4 and fixed numerous bugs across the past-gen devices.
More importantly, Wear OS 5 was the star of the major update. Google teased that there were "new features," but it didn't specify. The post alerted us to updates to the grid-view app launcher, camera controls, and Pixel Recorder functionality.
Originally, the Wear OS 5 update was supposed to continue hitting watches over the next week. However, with what's currently plaguing devices, that's not happening anymore. We can only hope that Google figures out the issue and solves it quickly. Right now, Pixel Watch and Pixel Watch 2 owners attempting to update their devices will find nothing available.
