The Wear OS ecosystem is shrinking further as TicWatches vanish from retailers and Mobvoi pivots toward AI-driven products.
What matters right now
- Mobvoi’s TicWatch lineup is dropping out of shelf space and off Mobvoi’s own site, which now leans toward home-gym gear and artificial intelligence.
- Mobvoi has not issued a formal statement beyond promising that “essential” updates for TicWatches will continue.
- The last Mobvoi watch to launch was the TicWatch Atlas in October 2024, powered by Wear OS 4, and it has yet to receive Wear OS 5 or Gemini support.
- Remaining Wear OS brands include Google, Samsung, OnePlus/Oppo, and Xiaomi, after Fossil and Tag Heuer exited the platform.
Although there’s no official confirmation that Mobvoi is leaving the smartwatch market, all indicators point in that direction and have been visible since the Google–Samsung relaunch of Wear OS 3 in 2021.
After months of slashing TicWatch prices by hundreds of dollars, Mobvoi has now removed TicWatch listings on Amazon without explanation.
On Mobvoi’s U.S. homepage, TicWatches have disappeared from the Products menu, though accessories like TicWatch straps and older product pages remain visible. Clicking the “Buy now” button on those pages returns a message stating that the product is not available at the moment.
9to5Google flagged the missing product pages and reached out to Mobvoi. The company replied that there is no new information to announce about the TicWatch lineup, but that existing devices will continue to receive essential support.
That kind of response would be more reassuring if it suggested ongoing durability for TicWatches, rather than implying updates will be limited to bug fixes without any feature upgrades.
From 2022 through 2024, Mobvoi released three watches: the TicWatch Pro 5, the TicWatch Pro 5 Enduro, and the TicWatch Atlas. Each offered multi-day battery life and used the same Snapdragon hardware found in Pixel and OnePlus watches, but they delivered few yearly updates to keep things fresh, and they all lacked a notable Wear OS capability: Google Assistant, and now Gemini support.
At this point, it seems likely that Wear OS watches as a category will continue to shrink. This isn’t surprising given the ongoing update challenges brands face with Wear OS.
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Wear OS update dynamics have reached a tipping point
Since Samsung and Google joined forces to relaunch Wear OS, Galaxy and Pixel Watches have tended to receive new features first. Other brands—Mobvoi, OnePlus, Xiaomi, and various Android OEMs—often take an extra year to get updates properly working on their hardware.
Mobvoi took two years to bring Wear OS 3 to its older TicWatches, and only started rolling out Wear OS 4 in late 2024, after Samsung and Google had moved to Wear OS 5. Meanwhile, earlier Wear OS 2 TicWatches never managed to run the newer Assistant experience.
We’re seeing similar update delays across other brands as well. Fossil, once a leading Wear OS name, lagged behind with Wear OS 3.5 in 2023 and eventually abandoned smartwatches altogether a few months later, offering only a handful of minor updates before exiting the market.
Today, OnePlus remains our preferred Wear OS option, with the OnePlus Watch 3 delivering strong battery life and solid Wear OS 5 performance. Yet its predecessor, the OnePlus Watch 2, is overdue for its promised Wear OS 5 update. Rumors suggest the upcoming OnePlus Watch Lite may ditch Wear OS altogether.
By prioritizing Google’s Pixel Watch 4 and Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 8, Google and Samsung have effectively set a high bar that makes it harder for other brands to compete. If a smartwatch can’t offer competitive smart features, many buyers will opt for devices that favor longer battery life and lower cost, even if they sacrifice some advanced software.
If Mobvoi’s TicWatch line fades away, the company may try to stay relevant by leaning into the AI revolution. A recent example is the TicNote, an Agentic AI note-taker designed to record, transcribe, and summarize meetings, classes, or calls.
Written by Michael, Android Central’s wearables and fitness expert, who has tested models from Garmin, Fitbit, Samsung, Apple, COROS, Polar, Amazfit, Suunto, and more.
