Samsung will halt support for Tizen-powered smartwatches within four weeks

Samsung has announced that it will be closing the Tizen Store for smartwatches on September 30, 2025. This decision will affect a number of older Tizen-based smartwatches, including the Galaxy Gear, Gear 2, Gear Live, Gear S, Gear S2, Gear S3, Gear Sport, Galaxy Watch, Galaxy Watch Active, Galaxy Watch Active 2, and Galaxy Watch 3.

From September 30, 2025, the Tizen Store will no longer support the installation of apps on smartwatches via paired smartphones. Users will not be able to reinstall apps that were previously deleted from their smartwatches. However, until this date, users can still transfer previously purchased apps and content to their smartwatches.

The Tizen Store is currently still operational and can be used to transfer content until September 30, 2025. There are several methods available to transfer apps to a Tizen smartwatch, some of which are outlined on Reddit and the XDA forum. These methods include guides for backing up apps and watch faces from the Tizen Store, as well as lists of app packages and watch faces that have been backed up for several smartwatches.

One of the methods for transferring apps to Tizen smartwatches requires root access on the paired smartphone. However, there are also methods available to transfer apps to smartwatches after a factory reset, some of which do not require root access.

The closure of the Tizen Store may have implications for user-created watch faces, as the Tizen Store stopped distributing free content on June 25, 2025. After September 30, 2025, smartwatches will continue to function but will no longer receive Tizen updates or app support.

It's worth noting that new Galaxy smartwatches from Samsung have been using Wear OS for the past four years, while older models were released with Tizen. The closure of the Tizen Store for smartwatches was announced in a Samsung support document.

For those affected by the closure of the Tizen Store, it's recommended to start backing up their apps and watch faces as soon as possible to ensure they can continue to use them after September 30, 2025. The XDA forum provides a wealth of resources and guides to help users with this process.