Samsung Pay on Active 2 Watch & non-Samsung phone

[ChrisXenon]

I have a Galaxy Watch Active 2 and a Huawei P Smart phone. A long time ago I set up Pay on the watch (which delegates a bunch of work to an interface on the phone) and it worked fine.

Today when I looked it told me to "get ready to use Samgung Pay on your phone". I tapped OK, and the hone reports "Samsung Pay app update" and requires me to select UPDATE.

Them in the app gallery, I am told "This app is not yet available in the current region". I am in the UK.

I phoned support who told me that this combination of watch and non-Samgung phone no longer work, but a  new watch would do.

Is this really true? Is there a workaround?

If it IS true and there is NOT a workaround, then this looks like another example of large corporates deliberately obsoleting perfectly-workin hardware by "upgrading" software in order to force new purchases.

Any helpful thoughts would be appreciateled.

Thanks

[Potshot2k4]

Hey! I don't think it is deliberate on samsung part, but with is us govt and huawei row it's stopped Google from working with them and a number of apps have stopped working. I had a p30 lite and Disney plus for example stopped working and Google play now says not compatible with your phone. I'd bet it's connected to politics.

[ChrisXenon]

Potshot2k4 thanks for your reply, you might be right, but I'd be surprised if you are. The UK government blocking Chinese control of UK infrastructure is one thing, but blocking a Smartphone app designed to connect a watch to that phone? I don't see is as being politically-driven.

This is further re-inforced by the Samsung support person saying that a new Samsung watch would work just fine with my Huawei smartphone. That pretty much smashes the theory, doesn't it?

So, it really does look like Samsung sold me a watch with the promise of cerrtain features.
Then they forced an update on the watch which broke those features.

THAT should be illegal. My watch is not far less useful than it was when I bought it.

Does anyone have an email or postal address I can formally complain to Smasung at? 

Thanks again for your input Potshot - I appreciate your time and it's food for thought.