The fateful and darkest of the days has finally come for the OnePlus 6 and 6T smartphones. The devices released in 2018, are about to complete four years, and with that in mind, OnePlus is ceasing the software support for them. The announcement was made through an obscure forum thread on OnePlus‘ community forum. According to a company’s spokesperson, the company will no longer provide software support for its OnePlus 6 and 6T smartphones released back in 2018. We could see that coming, after all, the company does not tend to carry its old smartphones for more than four years.
OnePlus 6 and 6T finish their cycle on Android 11
The OnePlus 6 and 6T users saw things slowing down last year. These two devices were the last to get Android 11-based OxygenOS 11. In fact, they received the update shortly before the Android 12 announcement which brought OxygenOS 12 to OnePlus smartphones. As far as these two devices are concerned, there isn’t any OxygenOS 12 love coming for them. The company will keep supporting the OnePlus 7/7T, 8/8T, and 9 series.
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The OnePlus 7T and 7T series should be the last in line for the OxygenOS 12 update. Also, their users need to prepare themselves as these devices are probably the next in line for losing software support.
OnePlus has limited the software support to three years since its OnePLus 3T and 3T handsets. Each OnePlus flagship device is entitled to three major OS updates and three years of security updates. This is still a way more than the vast majority of smartphone brands are offering. Just recently, we saw companies like Samsung and Xiaomi adopting a three-year OS update schedule, with four years of security patches. The OnePlus 6 and 6T received the Android 11 update with OxygenOS 11 in the last year in September. More recently, these devices got an incremental patch with a December security patch. That said, the devices should end their lives with the latest 2021 monthly security patch.
The alternative is to find a custom ROM or upgrade your device
There is still hope if you want to keep your device with you. With just a little search you’ll be able to find the custom ROM community over places like XDA-Developers and also in Telegram. With just some basic skills of ROM flashing and bootloader unlocking, you can flash one of the many custom ROMs available for these devices. That’s a way to keep them alive for a little longer if you refuse to upgrade or, at least, want to keep a good backup smartphone with updated OS. There are already Android 12 ROMs for the OnePlus 6 series smartphones.
