Update: Swagbucks’ New SB Watch App

Attribution: Author’s Own Work

Caption: You can see the app’s new name.

I just noticed this a few days ago: The Swagbucks SBTV app is being replaced with the Swagbucks Watch app. It looks pretty similar, but it’s very different in that it’s no longer a passive app. Not all of you will see these changes immediately. But over the next few days and weeks after the app updates (whether it be automatically or you doing so manually), you’ll see some mostly unpleasant changes. I’ll go into more detail below.

Similarities

The app itself looks almost identical to the older SBTV app. The short cut is a tad different because of the change in the app’s name, but besides that, the only difference I have seen exists when you start playing videos. As far as I can tell, the number of videos per cycle, crediting, bonus rounds and everything else seems to be running the same as the old app. 

Differences

Loading circle looks different. See the below picture:

There are now multiple points that require interaction (see below). This represents the worst change as it no longer allows this app to be passive. And what makes it even worse is that sometimes you'll have to interact with the app multiple times before a video cycle completes. And don't forget, you'll need 6 video cycles to complete before you earn 2 SB for finishing a video set. 

In the last picture, you’ll have to wait until that upper right corner button turns green before you can continue earning SB. Sometimes you'll need to click that green button 5 times (with it turning green every minute or so) before you get past this part of the video cycle. That's a lot of babysitting for just 2 SB! But I don't always get this little green button or anything else that needs clicking. Sometimes, the app will run passively without any ads running, allowing you to accrue your SB pretty quickly. But I noticed this "passive mode" only occurs after I babysit the app for a while.

Are There Any Good Changes?

According to Swagbucks, they say on the Swagbucks Watch app’s Google App Store page that users can earn “up to” 6 SB after each video set, instead of just 2. I’m guessing we won’t see these high rewards until the holiday season or they’ll be very rare and random.

Also, Swagbucks guarantees that users will earn “at least 10-30 SB per day.”

Besides these two benefits, I don’t think there’s anything else good about this update.

Bottom Line

Swagbucks is taking yet another step to reduce our passive earning potential. In my opinion, it’s only a matter of time before all their apps lose their passive earning ability.