Samsung released the One UI 8 Watch update for the Galaxy Watch 4 lineup in India about a week ago. However, many users are still waiting for the upgrade to appear on their devices. If you’re one of them, there’s an important detail you shouldn’t miss: you may need to install a separate security update first before One UI 8 Watch becomes available.
At the same time, speculation is growing that Samsung may have slowed or partially pulled the rollout following recent reports of a strange sensor-related issue affecting the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic.
August 2025 security patch arrives before One UI 8 Watch update
Some Galaxy Watch 4 users in India, on One UI 6 Watch (Samsung skipped One UI 7 Watch and jumped straight to 8 Watch), report that they recently received the August 2025 security patch. It’s a tiny 142MB update with “stability and reliability” fixes and no additional changes. However, by the looks of it, this security release is necessary for One UI 8 Watch to show up.
Shortly after users installed this update, their Galaxy Watch 4 also received One UI 8 Watch. The latter is a much bigger release, weighing approximately 1.7GB. Based on Wear OS, it brings a myriad of new features, UI enhancements, and other functional upgrades. It also bundles the October 2025 security patch.
It’s worth noting that Samsung began rolling out the August patch for the Galaxy Watch 4 series about two months ago. However, some users probably sit out on it, or didn’t bother checking for the update, effectively blocking their way to One UI 8 Watch. Now, when they check for the big feature release, the older update shows up first.
Meanwhile, there’s also a growing concern that the update may be buggy. Many Galaxy Watch 4 Classic users have claimed that wrist detection doesn’t work properly after updating their watches to One UI 8 Watch. This effectively breaks other features that require the watch to be worn on the wrist.
This issue seemingly only affects the Classic model, though we don’t rule out the possibility of similar problems on the vanilla Watch 4. If you haven’t received One UI 8 Watch yet, installing the August 2025 patch may be the key. However, those who are cautious may also want to wait until the sensor issue reports are fully addressed.