Google has been gradually moving away from Hangouts over the past couple of years. It will be transitioning G Suite users from the classic Hangouts service this year. The same change would also be made for individual users after that. Hangouts continues its march towards its eventual demise as the Wear OS app now bites the dust.
This was to be expected as Google is transitioning from this service. Therefore, it would make no sense for the company to maintain an app for its wearable device platform when it’s moving users away from the service.
That’s why the Hangouts app is no longer available for Wear OS devices. You will not be able to install it on one should you try to do so, either from the wearable device itself or from the web interface of the Play Store. The web interface actually shows Hangouts as incompatible with Wear OS now.
The classic service is being done away with in favor of separate services for text and video chat called Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet. So it goes without saying that there will be revisions for Wear OS apps and these services would eventually arrive on the wearable platform as well. Just when that’s going to happen remains to be seen as Google hasn’t said anything about it so far.
Filed in . Read more about Apps, Google, Hangouts and wear OS.