What isn’t clear is whether the software being tested will actually be Wear OS 5.1 or if it will turn out to be Wear OS 6. Mishaal Rahman, writing for Android Authority, notes that Google seems to be on an annual release schedule for Wear OS which would indicate that Wear OS 6 is being tested. He also says that Google’s last point update for Wear OS was version 3.5 in 2022. There were no such updates for Wear OS 4 which went straight to Wear OS 5. However, with Google testing Wear OS 5.1 on the Pixel Watch 2, it seems more likely that we are going to see the return to point updates.
The first Wear OS 5 watch, the Galaxy Watch 7. | Image credit-PhoneArena
Still, as Rahman notes, Google could decide to replace the Wear OS 5.1 name with Wear OS 6.0 before the software is launched. He says that the truth will be determined by whether Google will be including any new APIs or app-facing system behaviors with the new build it is testing. If so, that would be the clue that the build of Wear OS Google is working on internally will eventually be released as Wear OS 6 and might not be released until next year. At that time, Android 15 will be nearly a year old and Google will have apparently returned to its old schedule.