I have been meaning to write about this for at least a month or so, but I wanted to make sure that I had exhausted all avenues and that it was not an issue that happens once or twice. Since the last Wear OS update to my Fossil Gen 5 and the January Android security update for my Pixel 3 I have been having horrible Bluetooth connectivity issues. Looking at the Wear OS subreddit I appear to not be the only one too.
The situation is that every week or so at no particular time or particular day my Fossil Gen 5 appears to completely forget that it is paired to my Pixel 3. A notification will appear on my Pixel 3 to pair my smartwatch and I will need to confirm the pairing PIN on both my Pixel 3 and Fossil Gen 5. At first it was not a major issue but now it is starting to get a little annoying. Sometimes the pairing itself will completely fail and I will need to either turn off and turn back on the Bluetooth on my Fossil Gen 5 or restart the Fossil Gen 5.
The standard troubleshooting process that Google offers is to uninstall the Wear OS app on my Pixel 3 and factory reset my Fossil Gen 5. One major problem with this is the setup and update process of the Fossil Gen 5 and getting it configured again with Google Pay, uninstalling several unwanted apps, etc is not easily done and takes some time. It also appears that the only way to connect your Wear OS smartwatch to your smartphone is to use the Wear OS app too and it cannot just be paired like any other Bluetooth device.
I am not having Bluetooth issues with any other device connecting to my Pixel 3 like my Pixel Buds or my PXC 550 headphones. I believe this is not a hardware issue with my Pixel 3 and I am hoping that this is not a Bluetooth hardware issue with my Fossil Gen 5; if it were, I would imagine that it would fail to pair completely. Seeing as it only started to happen after I had some updates, I believe this is software related. Crossing my fingers that either Fossil or Google will fix this problem in the future, but I have little hope as Google appears to have all but abandoned the Wear OS platform or are keeping it on life support.
If Google was serious about wearables, then it should back the Wear OS platform by adding their own first party apps to the platform. Right now, you cannot even get the Google Authenticator on the platform anymore. This to me shows that Google is not serious about wearables even with the recent purchase of Fitbit recently and will always play second fiddle to Apple, watchOS and the Apple Watch. If Apple allowed the Apple Watch to be supported on other platforms like Wear OS smartwatches I would buy one in a heartbeat and not look back at another Wear OS device.
Christopher Tom Kochovski 