BEWARE - S24 series incompatible with older Samsung watches

[Mr_Ed]

I was excited to receive my new S24 today, but as I tried to set up my Gear S3 it shows as incompatible. 

So I have a choice - keep the watch that came with the phone that I didn't want or need, or send the phone back!

[Pete savage]

Completely fair, it never even entered my thaught that they woul not support the watch as I sat there in the store with the thing buzzing away on my wrist with emails and notifications from Vodafone piling through.

[Mr_Ed]

I need my watch for notifications and to tell the time. I don't need it to track my periods or any other such nonsense. And I need it to look nice, which the gear s3 did beautifully. 

I've sent back the S24 and will probably now not upgrade my phone until it dies 

[footbal9584]

Everyone, please check out this thread the S3 series does indeed work with the S24. The warning clearly indicates that the watch will not work with any phones released after the S24. There appears to be a bug that causes the necessary plugin to not automatically download.

https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/Galaxy-Watch/Gear-S3-Frontier-and-S24-Ultra/m-p/2795406/highligh...

[footbal9584]

James please correct this statement. The warning that Samsung shows clearly indicates it will not work AFTER 2024. The Gear S3 definitely works with the S24 series.

See the comments on the following post.

https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/Galaxy-Watch/Gear-S3-Frontier-and-S24-Ultra/m-p/2795406/highligh...

[Florida Man]

The watch does not work without workarounds and multiple resets, if it even works then. It also may stop working after the next update to the plug-in.

In addition,  I spoke to a supervisor in the tech support unit and he said it is not supposed to work. I take that with a big grain of salt,  but it matches what we are actually seeing.

Samsung still needs to fix this. 

[footbal9584]

I agree there is a bug with the software but the statement clearly states "phones released after 2024", not in 2024. And to be aware of this for your next phone upgrade not this one.

I do think Samsung needs to either update the language or issue a fix for the Wearable app, but I'm just saying that manually downloading the plugin has worked for a few people, and the wording in the warning is pretty clear that the S24 series should still be supported.

[Florida Man]

Oh, I absolutely agree the language is clear that the S24 should work. I tried your method, but so far no luck. A post on reddit has a few more steps to it that I haven't had the time to try yet. Here it is:

https://www.reddit.com/r/GearS3/s/1wTbIqzV5j

[Mr_Ed]

I was excited to read that thread, but it seems it's a (probably temporary) way to circumvent the issue, rather than a solution. The fact most people have struggled to make it work backs up my assumption. 

It's clearly a decision by Samsung to force people to buy new watches - presumably why they gave away a toy watch with pre-orders.

In short, I'm sticking with my S23 and Gear S3.

The language 'after 2024' was probably just a poor translation from the Korean. From and after have similar but very different meanings. 

[T_Ivanov]

I just found this out today when my S24 ultra arrived, I still use my Gear S3 even after 5-6 years now, only because the battery still lasts me 60+ hours, it does what I need it for and I've never had any reason to buy a newer watch especially since wear OS due to the fact that they barely last even a day. Effectively they are telling me that I am no longer able to use my watch, as I do not have an old phone and the watch itself does not allow for it to be setup on it's own without being connected to a phone that you use. So technically I now have a paperweight. I've filed an official complaint and I'm waiting for a reply. I'm more triggered that they are not allowing me to use a product which I own due to internal policies, than I am that I have to buy a newer watch now.

[watch s3]

Likewise, I received new S24+ phone only to discover it is not compatible with S3 watch. Quite disturbed as watch is like new...now is it junk? I would have kept my S21 in order to keep using watch.