The latest Samsung wearable tech, the Gear S3 smartwatch, comes with a killer feature that allows you to make credit card payments without the need for you to reach out for your wallet / purse. All you need to “hand” is your watch (excuse the pun). Samsung Pay works almost anywhere you can swipe or tap your card – including cards with chips
The Korean company has been proud to announce that the service will run on any smartphone running Android 4.4+ and we have seen this in action with it running on the LG V20. So, when you think any Android phone running OS 4.4+ you automatically think ANY – Well that might not be the case.
According to an online exchange with Samsung Pay’s official twitter account it seems the service does support Google’s Pixel and Pixel XL devices. A user was trying to install Samsung Pay on a Gear S3 Frontier with the Pixel XL, but it gives him the error message “Installation Failed. try again”. The official response is: “Hi there, #SamsungPay on the Gear S3 is not available with Pixel devices.”
@cyberslash69 Hi there, #SamsungPay on the Gear S3 is not available with Pixel devices. (1/2)
— Samsung Pay (@SamsungPay) November 25, 2016
So we know as of today Google Pixel devices are not supported, but there is no news as to why they are not supported or if they will be supported in the near future. If we had to hazard a guess I think it could be because Android 7.0 Nougat is not presently supported, but like I said that is a guess. We do know that Samsung are looking at expanding the current supported smartphone list. Possibly the Pixel devices will join this list, possibly they won’t, no one knows at the moment.