Tizen Watch Apps: The Store Is Closed, What Still Works

There is nowhere official left to download an app or a watch face for a Samsung watch that runs Tizen. Samsung wound down the Tizen side of its Galaxy Store in stages and ended the service on 30 September 2025. A list of Tizen apps to install would be a list of things you cannot get.

What you can do is keep using what is already on the watch. This page covers which watches are affected, the dates Samsung gave, what still works, and the one thing to avoid if you want to keep your apps. If your watch is a Galaxy Watch4 or newer, it runs a different system and the shutdown does not touch it. That section is further down.

Which Samsung watches run Tizen

Samsung’s support site draws the line in one sentence: its smart watches released before the Galaxy Watch4 operate on Tizen. The Galaxy Watch4 and the models after it run Wear OS, the system Samsung builds with Google.

Samsung’s developer documentation lists the Tizen watches by name:

• Galaxy Watch3
• Galaxy Watch Active2
• Galaxy Watch Active
• Galaxy Watch, the 2018 model with no number
• Gear Sport
• Gear S3
• Gear S2

What Samsung shut down, and when

Samsung gave developers its reason in a notice on its developer site. Starting with the Galaxy Watch4 it switched its watch system from Tizen to Wear OS, new watch apps are distributed through Google Play, and so it was discontinuing Tizen watch apps and watch faces in the Galaxy Store. The dates come from the notices on Samsung’s Galaxy Store Seller Portal, the last of which set out the closing schedule.

Two things follow from that table. Developers have not been able to send out an update for a Tizen watch app since the end of 2023. And the last date closed re-downloads as well, so having paid for an app years ago does not let you fetch it again.

Some of Samsung’s help pages still tell Galaxy Watch3 and Watch Active2 owners to open the Galaxy Store from the Galaxy Wearable app to install apps. Those pages make no mention of the shutdown. Go by the schedule.

What still works on a Tizen watch

Apps already on the watch. The Seller Portal notice answers this directly: people can go on using the content they bought unless they delete it from the device. Facer, the watch face app, says the same on its Google Play listing. The Galaxy Watch3 and older are supported for people who already have the Facer app on the watch.

What Samsung built in. Samsung’s feature page for the Galaxy Watch3 lists calls and texts from the wrist, suggested replies, daily briefings, a music controller, a PowerPoint controller, Bixby and Samsung Pay. Its compatibility guide adds the alarm, world clock, timer and stopwatch, and Samsung Health for exercise and sleep tracking. These are features of the watch itself. The one exception on the Watch3 page is the camera controller, which Samsung says needed an additional app download.

The phone app. Galaxy Wearable is still on Google Play, free, and Samsung keeps a second listing of it that names the Galaxy Watch, Gear S3, Gear S2 and Gear Sport as the devices it is for. On an iPhone, Samsung’s free Samsung Galaxy Watch (Gear S) app is on the App Store. Its listing names the Gear S2, Gear S3, Gear Sport, Galaxy Watch, Watch Active, Watch Active2 and Watch3.

Your phone. Samsung’s compatibility page says the Galaxy Watch, Watch3, Watch Active and Watch Active2 work with Samsung phones on Android 5.0 or later that have at least 1.5 GB of RAM. It lists all four as compatible with the Galaxy S24, S25 and S26 series. The Gear models fare worse. Samsung supports the Gear Sport, Gear S2 Classic, Gear S3 Frontier and Gear S3 Classic only up to Android 13, and says they are not compatible with Samsung Galaxy phones on Android 14 or newer.

Spotify. Spotify’s support site still has a page for Tizen watches. It lists the Galaxy Watch up to the Watch3 and Watch Active2 as supported, with play, pause and skip for everyone and offline downloads for Premium subscribers. That helps only if Spotify is already on your watch.

Think before you reset the watch

This is the part to be careful with. Samsung’s reset page says a reset removes all of your personal data and restores the watch to its default settings. On a Tizen watch, default settings means the apps and watch faces you added are gone, and the store that supplied them is closed.

Moving to a new phone carries the same risk. Samsung’s instructions for the Galaxy Watch3 say that connecting it to a new phone resets all data except media files and settings. Samsung offers a backup first, and its backup page says what that holds: system settings, watch face settings, data for the preloaded apps, and a list of the apps installed on the watch. A list is not the apps themselves. With downloads switched off, we would not count on a restore to bring them back.

So if the watch works and you like what is on it, keep it paired to the phone it is on for as long as you can. Do not delete an app to free up space unless you are sure you will never want it again.

Sideloading and app archives

Samsung’s developer site still carries the instructions for installing an app on a Tizen watch from a computer, using Tizen Studio and a certificate tied to that watch. They are written for people testing an app they built themselves. It is a developer’s tool, and no substitute for a store.

Google’s search suggestions show people looking for archives of old Tizen app files. Any such collection is unofficial. None comes from Samsung, we have not checked any of them, and we are not linking to one. A paid app copied from an archive is also not yours to install.

If you have a Galaxy Watch4 or newer

You are on Wear OS and your apps come from Google Play. Google’s help page gives two ways to install one:

• On the watch: open the Play Store from the apps list, search for the app and tap Install.
• From the phone: open the Play Store app, find the watch apps or watch faces category, choose an app and tap Install to send it to the watch.

Google adds that the apps on your phone do not sync to the watch automatically. You install the watch version yourself.

Four apps from this article’s old Tizen list say in their Google Play listings that they run on Wear OS: WhatsApp, Spotify, SmartThings and Facer. WhatsApp’s listing describes replying to messages and taking calls from the wrist. Spotify’s says Premium subscribers can download music to the watch.

There is one trade-off. Samsung says the Galaxy Watch4 and later rely on Google Play services, which are not supported on iOS, so a Wear OS Galaxy Watch will not pair with an iPhone. The Tizen watches did. Samsung lists the Galaxy Watch, Watch Active and Watch Active2 as compatible with an iPhone 5 or later on iOS 9 and above.

Keep it or replace it

• The watch does what you need: keep it. Telling the time, notifications, step counts, workouts and the apps already installed do not depend on the store.
• You want a new app or a new watch face: there is no official way to add one. That takes a Galaxy Watch4 or later.
• You have just reset it and lost your apps: the built-in features are what is left. Decide whether those are enough.
• You use an iPhone: a newer Galaxy Watch will not work with it. Your Tizen watch is the only kind of Galaxy Watch that does, which is a reason to look after it.
• You have a Gear S2 Classic, Gear S3 or Gear Sport and are buying a new Galaxy phone: read Samsung’s compatibility page first. Samsung supports those watches only up to Android 13.

What happened to the old list

The 2019 version of this article recommended ten apps: WhatsApp, HERE WeGo, Spotify, MapMyRun, Pear, SmartThings, Flipboard, Facer, Clock and Calculator. None of them can be downloaded to a Tizen watch today, so the list has gone. The clock functions were part of the watch all along.

Quick answers

Can I still download apps on a Galaxy Watch3 or Watch Active2?

No. Samsung suspended new downloads of free Tizen watch content on 25 June 2025 and ended the service, re-downloads included, on 30 September 2025.

Why does the Galaxy Store show no apps or watch faces for my watch?

If the watch is a Galaxy Watch3 or older, it runs Tizen, and Samsung has ended the Tizen watch service in the Galaxy Store. If it is a Galaxy Watch4 or newer, look in Google Play instead.

What is the difference between Tizen and Wear OS?

Tizen is Samsung’s own system, used on its watches up to the Galaxy Watch3. Wear OS is the system Samsung has built with Google since the Galaxy Watch4, and its apps come from Google Play.

Does a Tizen Galaxy Watch work with a new Samsung phone?

Samsung lists the Galaxy Watch, Watch Active, Watch Active2 and Watch3 as compatible with the Galaxy S26 series. Its Watch3 instructions say that pairing with a new phone resets the watch’s data, apart from media files and settings.

Does a Tizen watch work with an iPhone?

Samsung says the Galaxy Watch, Watch Active and Watch Active2 work with an iPhone 5 or later on iOS 9 and above, through the Samsung Galaxy Watch (Gear S) app.