Strava goes for Wear OS 3 and abandons older versions

Strava is one of the most used apps among runners and cyclists that has also been available for Wear OS for quite some time. The app has now been made suitable for the new Wear OS 3 via an update.

Strava and Wear OS 3

Google and Samsung announced this year that they are working together on a new operating system for smartwatches. Samsung has said goodbye to Tizen, and Google is saying goodbye to Wear OS for this project. The successor is called Wear OS 3 and the first smartwatches for this new platform have now been announced. The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic run on Samsung’s new One UI Watch interface, which is based on Google’s Wear OS 3. The new Fossil Gen 6 series will receive the update in 2022.

Meanwhile, app developers are busy making their apps suitable for this wearable operating system, including Strava. Strava has had a standalone Wear OS app since 2017, which allows you to record your sports activities with your Wear OS watch without having to bring a smartphone with you. Strava has now released an update that makes the app suitable for the new Wear OS 3. This means that the Wear OS 3 app can already be used on the new Galaxy Watch 4 smartwatches.

Bad news for older Wear OS

Unfortunately, there is bad news for Wear OS smartwatch owners, so a smartwatch that doesn’t run on Wear OS 3. They will run out of updates in the future, as we read on this help page. Fortunately, the Strava app can still be used on these watches, but there will be no more updates for it.

As of August 2021, Strava will only support the Wear OS 3.0 application. Older devices using Wear 2.XX can continue to use the old Strava app, but will no longer receive updates in the future.

It’s understandable that app developers stop supporting older versions of platforms over time, but Strava is very quick with this decision. There are only two Wear OS 3 watches on the market, the vast majority still run on an older version. Do you have a Wear OS watch and use Strava to record your workouts? Let us know in the comments below this article.