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!

[KimMadsen]

Actually it says
"released after 2024", we are still in 2024 😉
and
"please be aware of this when changing your mobile phone in the future", i repeat: in the future 😉

Nothing here tells me my s24 and my Gear S3 are NOT compatible, i read this as a notice for _next_ time i want a new phone, for instance S25 (although S24 came late 2023)

So yeah, i'm pretty frustrated with the many hours i've spend on this problem the last 10 days until samsung supporter last no.5 could tell me that they're not gonna work. Escalating this as we speak, horrible customer experience!

Kind regards
Kim

[Mr_Ed]

Indeed. Send it back. They don't deserve your money

[Newseum]

Yes, 

If you have a new phone from 2021 or later (Below OS 14), like the S24 series, you may not be able to use some old Samsung smartwatches and fitness trackers with it. For example, the Galaxy Gear, Gear 2, Gear S3, and Gear Fit will not connect with the new phones.

Samsung Announced.

[Florida Man]

Show me where Samsung announced the Gear S3 will not work with the S24. 

[Mr_Ed]

The only time you find out is when you try to pair it, and you get the message I posted two weeks ago in this thread. 

[footbal9584]

It's been working fine for me aside from having to manually downloaded the plug in.

I still say, that message says after 2024 and you get that same message if you try to pair the watch on older devices too. Went and paired it with my Note 20 Ultra and had issues pairing there as well

[Mr_Ed]

Well I hope it lasts. It's clearly not supposed to. They want you to buy a new watch

[T_Ivanov]

I tried manually downloading the plug-in and tried with a few older version of wearable, including the current one and it did not work, it went to the pairing section, the message did not appear, however it kept loading and just couldn't connect, although I was able to see the watch in the menu of wearable, as if I've already paired it, but it was disconnected. Thus far Samsung's only reply to me is "sorry for the inconvenience" and no one is really answering my questions, like how do I go about starting up my watch, without having to connect it to a phone as the only one currently own is an S24. 

[footbal9584]

That's similar to the experience i had when i tried to go back and pair it with my Note 20 Ultra. It just went to the app like it connected to my phone.

What I had to do on the Note 20 Ultra was the following. Maybe it'll work with your S24.

1. Uninstall Galaxy Wearable and Gear S Plugin
2. Go into Apps in Settings and search for Wear, there was another Wearable app installed, uninstalled that as well.
3. Downloaded latest Wearable App from the Play Store.
   1. For the S24 Ultra, here you would also download the Gear S plugin from the Play Store
4. Attempt to pair the watch, on the Note 20 Ultra, it should automatically download the plugin. One the S24, it should just go through the pairing process successfully.

I recorded a short video of me pairing the watch on both the Note 20 Ultra and my S24 Ultra. Hopefully it helps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gxRF7u_-4g

[Newseum]

The Gear Sport, Gear S2 Classic, Gear S3 Frontier, Gear S3 Classic, Gear Fit2, and Gear Fit2 Pro are all compatible with phones that run on Android 4.3 - Android 13....

But S24 Series Is based on Android 14 OS...hence its not compatible.

https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00082502/