RIP Hangouts for Wear OS wearables

We previously learned that Google plans to do away with Google Hangouts as we currently know it by splitting off its features into two other apps known as Hangouts Meet and Hangouts Chat. For now, though, regular ol’ Hangouts is still available to use on your phone.

However, you won’t be able to install it on your Wear OS device anymore as Google appears to have removed the Wear OS version of the app from the Play Store. As you can see in the image above, when you search for “Hangouts” on your Wear OS-powered device — in this case the Fossil Sport — the list of app suggestions returned by the search query doesn’t include Hangouts.

Similarly, if you visit the Hangouts page on the Play Store via a desktop browser, any Wear OS devices you try to install the app on will show as incompatible:

While this is likely disappointing to any people who want to use Hangouts on their smartwatch (which is arguably a fairly small amount of people), it shouldn’t be that surprising. The chat platform isn’t long for this world as it is so we’ll likely see little changes like this periodically over the next few months.

Does this removal of Hangouts for Wear OS affect you? Or have you already moved on to a new messaging solution? Let us know in the comments.

NEXT: Google reveals timeline for retirement of ‘classic’ Hangouts