Telegram Returns to Smartwatches After a Five-Year Wear OS Hiatus

Telegram’s smartwatch apps are back after a five-year absence. The company on June 11, 2026 released new first-party apps for both Apple Watch and Wear OS, ending a gap that started when Telegram dropped Wear OS support in 2021. The new apps handle most of what a wrist-bound user needs.

Telegram’s own release notes, however, treat the launch like a confession. The post admits the iOS and Android teams each built different features “for some reason,” and the two halves plan to borrow from each other in a future update. The framing makes the asymmetric feature list the story of the rollout, and the wearables market itself looks unrecognizable from the one Telegram left.

What the Two Watch Apps Can Do

Telegram’s new Apple Watch and Wear OS apps both support a baseline of common actions. Users can send text messages and voice messages, listen to voice notes, view media and video messages, and read messages of any length without picking up their phone, according to Telegram’s June 11 blog post on the launch. Chat management, broadly, is available on both watches. The differences live in the extras.

The Apple Watch version adds viewing shared locations and sending stickers. The Wear OS version adds pinning and muting chats, plus the ability to delete messages. Telegram’s own blog post describes the split in its own voice, with the company openly puzzled by its own product decisions. Both versions also support groups and communities, with chat backgrounds from the connected phone carrying over to the watch.

Both apps are part of the same June 11, 2026 update that Telegram pushed to its iOS and Android phone apps. The watch apps are the headline, but the same release is doing more work than wrist-bound messaging.

Where the Two Watch Apps Diverge

The split is the most distinctive thing about the launch, and Telegram chose to put it in writing. The post frames the feature asymmetry as an accident of staffing rather than a deliberate product plan, then promises a fix. Telegram’s own description of the gap is also a hint that the chat management tools and the location and sticker tools are likely to land on both watches in a future build, rather than remain a permanent split.

For some reason, our Android developer added muting and pinning chats, as well as deleting messages. Meanwhile, the iOS developer added viewing locations and sending stickers. Why?? We will never know. We’ve convinced them to steal these features from each other in the next update.

That language is from Telegram’s own team, in the company’s June 11, 2026 blog post on the launch. The framing reads less like a roadmap and more like a developer Slack thread that escaped into a public changelog, and it is the clearest signal yet of how Telegram decided to ship the new apps before the two feature sets converged.

How Different the Market Looks Since 2021

Telegram dropped support for Wear OS entirely in 2021, and the wearable market has since reshuffled in ways that change the calculus of the return. When the company last shipped a Wear OS build, the Pixel Watch did not exist and Samsung’s Galaxy Watch line was still running Tizen, Google’s own reporting on the current launch confirms. Both lines now run Wear OS, and the install base Telegram sat out for five years is much larger than the one it left.

The return lands at a time when watches have grown into a default chat surface for many users, especially for triage. Telegram’s first-party app also arrives after a long gap on Apple’s side, with the original Apple Watch app dating to 2015 before being removed from the App Store “a few years back,” MacRumors reports. Telegram founder Pavel Durov announced the Apple Watch app on June 10, 2026, a day before the broader update, according to PANews. The wider Wear OS app market has matured in parallel. Google’s own Androidify app, for instance, now ships a Gemini-powered tool for designing custom Wear OS watch faces, a category that did not exist when Telegram last had a presence on the platform. The Apple Watch itself, meanwhile, is in the middle of a longer hardware cycle, with the Androidify AI watch face tool for Wear OS and the Apple Watch redesign delay to 2028 both reflecting the slower cadence of wearable hardware today.

The five-year gap means Telegram is reintroducing itself to a wrist audience that has changed brands, operating systems, and habits in the meantime. Telegram’s blog post frames the new app as a polished native client, but the watch audience is also more crowded with first-party chat apps from Apple, Google, and Samsung than it was in 2021.

The Phone App Picked Up Useful Extras

The smartwatch apps are only part of the June 11, 2026 release. The same Telegram phone update introduces what the company calls “obscenely rich” text formatting for bots, with inline media, tables, nested blockquotes, collapsible sections, footnotes, math formulas, and headings all available in a single message. Bots can pack up to 32,768 characters into one reply, with a Show More button after the first 8,000 or so characters. The longer ceiling is aimed at AI bots in particular, which Telegram identifies as the heaviest users of formatting.

Polls can now include links inside the options themselves. The in-app browser opens Markdown .md files natively, and a long-press on a link lets the user pick a different default browser rather than copy-pasting URLs between apps. On both iOS and Android, users can whitelist sites to always or never open inside Telegram’s built-in browser, with Telegram explicitly noting that the in-app browser does not store browsing history. The same update also lets group admins add AI bots as guardians to screen join requests and moderate posts, a feature the company pitches as a way to keep large groups readable.

A Beta-First Rollout for the Android Version

The Apple Watch app arrived on the App Store as a direct install. The Wear OS app is going out more cautiously. The official build is currently being made available to users enrolled in Telegram’s beta program on the Play Store, with a wider public release expected later. Beta enrollees can install the official version through that channel before it lands in the regular Play Store listing.

Telegram’s blog post addresses Huawei watch owners directly, acknowledging that the new Wear OS app will not run on their hardware. The post reads: “If you’re using a Huawei watch and can’t run the Wear OS app, ask nicely – our developers will make an app for you too.” That line is a roadmap signal rather than a confirmed release date.

The same update is also the first time Telegram has shipped a first-party watch app since dropping the original Apple Watch client years ago. Users on the iOS side can install the new Apple Watch app directly from the App Store, while Android users who want the Wear OS build today have to opt into the Telegram beta on the Play Store. For everyone else, the wait is short: the broader public rollout is expected to follow once the beta period ends.

Frequently Asked Questions

When did Telegram bring its smartwatch apps back?

Telegram published its new smartwatch apps on June 11, 2026. The blog post, titled “Smartwatch Apps, Rich Text for Bots, AI Guardians for Groups, and Much More,” introduced first-party apps for both Apple Watch and Wear OS in the same update, with the Apple Watch app first teased by Pavel Durov a day earlier on June 10, 2026.

What is different between the Apple Watch and Wear OS apps?

Both apps handle text, voice messages, media viewing, long messages, and chat management. The Apple Watch version uniquely supports viewing shared locations and sending stickers. The Wear OS version uniquely supports pinning and muting chats, and deleting messages. Telegram’s own release notes say the two teams will “steal” the missing features from each other in a future update, so the asymmetry is expected to be temporary.

Why did Telegram leave Wear OS in the first place?

Telegram dropped support for Wear OS in 2021, a decision confirmed by Telegram support at the time. At that point, the Pixel Watch did not exist and Samsung’s Galaxy Watch was still running Tizen, leaving the Wear OS install base too small to support a maintained app, per SamMobile’s reporting on the current launch.

Do I need the Telegram beta to install the Wear OS app?

Yes, for now. The official Wear OS app is currently being made available to users enrolled in Telegram’s beta program on the Play Store. Wider public availability is expected to follow, with beta enrollees getting the official build first.

What new features did the phone app get in the same release?

Bots can now send rich text with inline media, tables, blockquotes, and up to 32,768 characters per message. Polls can include links. The in-app browser opens .md files natively. Long-pressing a link lets the user choose a different browser, and sites can be whitelisted to always or never open inside Telegram’s browser.