Kiplimo’s victory further solidifies his status as one of the sport’s greats and marks another milestone in his career as the current half-marathon world record holder (56:42) and Uganda’s national marathon record holder.

For Kiplimo, preparation was strategic, precise and deeply tied to technology. He consistently monitored his running and sleep data using Galaxy Watch8, which helped him maintain peak condition in the weeks leading up to the event.

The Galaxy Watch8 series offers powerful features designed for runners of all levels, from beginners to elite athletes like Kiplimo. With Running Coach, users can analyze performance data after a 12-minute run, get a tailored assessment of their running skills on a 10 level-scale, and receive a customized training program.

During each run, Galaxy Watch8 provides real-time pace feedback with detailed metrics, while even offering motivational messages — making it a valuable partner for any runner.

While running is the foundation of any marathon training plan, Kiplimo emphasized the importance of recovery. For recovery and improved balance, Galaxy Watch8 delivers personalized sleep coaching based on individual sleep patterns. The Bedtime Guidance feature, introduced with the Galaxy Watch8 series, analyzes the user’s sleep patterns over three days to suggest their ideal bedtime and establish consistent sleep routines for better rest and recovery.

“When anxiety kicks in before the big race, it is critical that I reduce my training and conserve my energy through sleep – a crucial part of every runner’s training journey,” said Kiplimo. “Sleep helps my body lock in all the hard work I’ve done.”

¹ First held in 1977, the Chicago Marathon is one of the seven World Marathon Majors, attracting elite runners worldwide.

Biohacking is about turning personal health data into micro-upgrades that boost wellness and longevity. Early biohackers might have chased these gains with extreme diets, supplements and experimental techniques. But if you scroll your social feed today, tech leads the conversation.

At the forefront of this tech-driven movement is the Galaxy Watch8 series.¹ Seamlessly integrating into your daily routine, it quietly tracks key lifestyle metrics so you can see how the choices you make throughout the day impact your health.

Before we dive in, let’s do a quick check-in: How many of these biohacks are already part of your routine?

Already acing your biohacks? The Galaxy Watch8 series refines each habit for faster, smarter gains.

Optimize Your Sleep With Biohacking

We spend about 30% of our lives asleep, yet irregular schedules and sub-optimal environments still undermine rest. The Galaxy Watch8 series optimizes sleep by analyzing your sleep patterns and environment, identifying issues, and giving actionable tips to help build consistent, restorative sleep habits.

• How can I follow a regular sleep schedule?
• Wear the Galaxy Watch8 for three nights to unlock Bedtime Guidance. It analyzes your sleep patterns and recommend the best times to wind down, based on your sleep pressure and circadian rhythm, helping you reset your sleep schedule and maximize alertness during the day.

• How can I improve my sleep quality? 
• Galaxy Watch8 tracks every toss, turn and breath of your night. Each morning you get an in-depth sleep analysis based on your sleep stages, heart rate, skin temperature and oxygen level, highlighting what helped or hindered your rest. You can also access a Sleep Environment Report which leverages data from your other SmartThings devices to analyze temperature, humidity, CO₂ and illuminance. With this data at your fingertips, you can easily optimize your room conditions for a better night’s sleep.

• What can I do during the day to improve my sleep? 
• Once your sleep patterns are defined, Sleep Coaching assigns you a Sleep Animal and delivers personalized tips like adding a quick meditation session or skipping late-day caffeine. With Galaxy Watch8, small, daily habit upgrades are easy, and better nights are within reach.

Optimize Your Workouts With Biohacking

Some people train for marathons. Others just want to feel less stiff after sitting all day. So how do you reach your goals while staying motivated and avoiding injury? The Galaxy Watch8 series gives you all the answers, all while sitting snugly on your wrist thanks to its sleek design and dynamic lug system.

• How do I set the ideal fitness goal for me?
• Galaxy Watch8’s built-in Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) sensor measures your body fat percentage, body-water content and skeletal muscle mass, so you get a comprehensive snapshot of your body. These insights help you create a personalized training plan and track every step of your progress.

• How can I start running more consistently? 
• Start with Running Coach, which analyzes your pace and fitness level after just a 12-minute run to build a custom routine. It also keeps you motivated during your runs with real-time feedback, helping you to reach your goals. Worried about potential injury? Running Coach provides tailored training programs at the ideal intensity, helping you gain speed safely.

• How can I maximize recovery after training? 
• Samsung Health gives you the tools for optimal post-workout recovery. Check your heart rate after an intense workout and get recommendations on water intake based on sweat loss, so you can get the rest you need to come back stronger.

• [Bonus Tip] Try Zone 2² interval training, known to improve endurance and boost fat burning potential. Galaxy Watch8 sets personalized Heart Rate Zones based on your fitness level to help you stay within your personal HR Zone 2 for peak results.

Optimize Your Nutrition With Biohacking

Now that sleep and activity are under control, turn to the everyday habits that drive healthy aging. The Galaxy Watch8 series is the first smartwatch to track antioxidant levels, giving you a real-time view of your cellular health and how each lifestyle choice shapes it. Just put your thumb on the back sensor to get Instant Nutritional Feedback that used to require lab tests.

• How do I know if I’m eating enough fruits and vegetables?
• Use the Antioxidant Index to see how your diet and lifestyle habits impact healthy aging. Within just five seconds, it measures the carotenoids — natural antioxidants from fruits and veggies — stored in your skin and provides a score out of 100. It also offers tips to boost your score, like adding more colorful produce such as carrots, broccoli and oranges to your meals.

• How can I cut down on unhealthy habits?
• First, we must learn more about how our bodies are affected by these unhealthy habits. Your Energy Score provides insights on how factors such as alcohol intake and late-night snacking affect your health, while Antioxidant Index directly shows the impact of these habits — motivating you to change your ways and adopt a healthier lifestyle.

• How can I easily track my water intake?
• Proper hydration is essential for performing at your best, but it is often difficult to track. With Samsung Health, you can track your water intake with just a tap and set a daily hydration goal. Galaxy Watch8 will handle the rest by sending personalized reminders and monitoring trends, making it effortless to stay on top of your game.

The Galaxy Watch8 series turns biohacking from buzzword to habit — personal, actionable and effortless. Wear it, watch the insights roll in, and let better health become second nature.

¹ Availability and features may vary depending on market, model and the smartphone paired; visit https://news.samsung.com/global/new-features-on-one-ui-8-watch-help-users-build-healthier-habits for details. Not intended for use in detection, diagnosis, treatment of any medical condition. The result is for your personal reference only. Please consult a medical professional for advice.
² Zone 2 refers to the second of the five heart rate zones, or 60% to 70% of your maximum heart rate.

Powered by Samsung’s cutting-edge sensor technology that provides a holistic, real-time overview of our health, the new Galaxy Watch8 series¹ shifts the focus to preventative care. It provides clear, actionable insights based on your lifestyle patterns to help you understand your body and mind more deeply, build healthy habits and help identify silent threats such as ectopic beats early on.

▲The Galaxy Watch8 series’ Antioxidant Index allows you to monitor your antioxidant intake by measuring carotenoid levels in the skin.

Preventative Care Through Early Detection

With new heart metrics, the Galaxy Watch8 series spots the potential for health issues sooner, so you can prevent them before they start:

• Ectopic Beat Detection: Ectopic beat detection refers to the process of identifying premature heartbeats that originate from locations other than the sinoatrial (SA) node, which is the heart’s natural pacemaker. The Galaxy Watch8’s enhanced Electrocardiogram (ECG)² can better capture ectopic beats – premature heartbeats that often go undetected in routine checkups as they frequently occur without noticeable symptoms. It is well known that frequent ectopic beats can be considered clinically significant and may lead to arrhythmias that drive up stroke and heart-failure risk. The Galaxy Watch8 series provides enhanced ECG measurement with the ability to differentiate instances of frequent ectopic beats providing earlier insights to support preventive care.

• Vascular Load: While you sleep, the Galaxy Watch8 reads Photoplethysmogram (PPG) waveforms – optical signals associated with blood flow during sleep. It measures blood volume and vascular stiffness and precisely analyzes changes in stress on blood vessels. Because diet, stress, and rest all affect this metric, regular monitoring shows which habits to fine-tune and helps you cut cardiovascular risk before it takes hold.

Lifestyle Changes Motivated by Sensor-Driven Insights

The Galaxy Watch8 series’ advanced sensor now gives you more immediate insights for your nutrition and sleep patterns to steer you towards lasting, sustainable habits:

• Antioxidant Index: Because lifestyle often outweighs genetics, the Galaxy Watch8 series shines a light on your daily choices. The BioActive Sensor measures skin carotenoids in five seconds using multi-wavelength absorption spectroscopy. After analyzing these carotenoids, an antioxidant which reflects fruit and vegetable intake, you are given a score of 0–100, which is categorized into one of three levels. This score shows how diet, UV light, alcohol and stress are impacting your antioxidant levels. With insufficient fruit and vegetable intake linked to major health risks, this non-invasive metric offers meaningful insight, promotes healthier choices and adds another layer of prevention to your daily routine.

• Bedtime Guidance: Leveraging the science behind the two-process model of sleep regulation, the Galaxy Watch8 series tracks your circadian rhythm (internal body clock) and sleep pressure (how much your body needs sleep), over three days. It then interprets this data as a differential equation to calculate the optimal bedtime for waking up refreshed. The algorithm uses changes in sleep threshold and individual sleep needs throughout the day to deliver personalized guidance. Developed by KAIST and clinically tested at Samsung Medical Center, this feature helps build healthier sleep routines that lead to deeper, less interrupted sleep and more energized mornings.

Pioneering the Next Era of Preventative Care

Samsung’s sensor innovation is setting a new standard for preventative care. The Galaxy Watch8 series helps unify your patterns, expose hidden risks, and deliver real-time actionable insights so you can safeguard your health in advance. Samsung is not only redefining what a smartwatch can do today, but also accelerating the next wave of preventative-care breakthroughs for tomorrow.

¹ Availability and features may vary depending on market, model and the smartphone paired; visit https://www.samsungmobilepress.com/feature-stories/great-health-can-happen-overnight-with-galaxy-watch for details. Not intended for use in detection, diagnosis, treatment of any medical condition. The result is for your personal reference only. Please consult a medical professional for advice.
² The ECG feature is only available in select markets. It is not intended to replace traditional methods of diagnosis or treatment. The feature is not intended for users with known arrhythmias other than AFib. Users should not interpret or take clinical action based on the device output without consultation with a qualified healthcare professional.

Samsung Electronics today introduced Galaxy Watch8 and Galaxy Watch8 Classic,¹ establishing an iconic design identity across the entire Galaxy Watch lineup. Building upon the foundation of the Galaxy Watch Ultra’s cushion design, this series boasts the thinnest, most comfortable Galaxy Watch ever² for continuous health tracking. The Galaxy Watch8 series suits diverse lifestyles and provides advanced capabilities, setting a new standard for style and personalized health experiences.

“We are committed to empowering billions of people to live healthier lives through our innovative technology,” said TM Roh, President and Acting Head of the Device eXperience (DX) Division at Samsung Electronics. “By combining purposeful design with advanced sensor technology and an intuitive AI-powered experience, the Galaxy Watch8 series serves as a starting point for a healthier, more connected life, making it easier than ever to take meaningful steps toward users’ well-being.”

Redesigned Inside and Out for Ultimate Wellness

By reimagining both form and function, the Galaxy Watch8 series delivers unmatched comfort alongside industry-leading performance, making it the ultimate companion for everyday wellness. The distinctive cushion design, which debuted with Galaxy Watch Ultra, now defines the entire Galaxy Watch lineup. To achieve the thinnest design yet, the internal structure of Galaxy Watch8 was completely reengineered and its component mounting capability has been improved by 30%, resulting in an 11% thinner design. Combined with the Dynamic Lug system, this design moves naturally with the wrist, providing greater comfort and improved stability² for a better fit and enhanced health-tracking accuracy.

Galaxy Watch8’s sleek profile is complemented by its exceptional performance. Even when you are outdoors under bright sunlight, the display is 50% brighter² with a peak brightness of 3,000nits for easy visibility, and the enhanced battery² ensures the watch can keep up with an active lifestyle. Moreover, the dual-frequency GPS provides more detailed and precise location results² while our most powerful 3nm processor delivers faster performance and greater power efficiency. With the groundbreaking BioActive Sensor that enables deeper and more accurate health insights, the Galaxy Watch8 series helps provide a holistic view of your health.

Motivation for Lasting Health Changes

Sleep is a window into your overall health and each restful night allows your body and mind to recover immediately the very next day. That’s why Samsung is continuously advancing the sleep experience, offering tailored sleep coaching, helping to create an optimal sleep environment, and even detecting moderate to severe signs of sleep apnea. On top of that, the Galaxy Watch8 series comes with new unique health features on the Samsung Health app³ that help you build healthier habits through instant, motivational insights – from sleep to nutrition and workout.

Bedtime Guidance⁴ can measure your circadian rhythm to suggest the optimal time to go to bed so you wake up refreshed the next morning. Vascular Load⁵ helps monitor the stress levels on your vascular system during sleep. Providing insights on various lifestyle factors including sleep, stress and activity, it helps you adopt a more comprehensive approach to managing your health.

Meanwhile, the Galaxy Watch8 series introduces Antioxidant Index⁶ for the first time in a smartwatch, enabling you to measure carotenoid levels in just five seconds and make informed lifestyle choices for healthy aging.

Whether you’re a novice or experienced runner, the Galaxy Watch8 series delivers personalized fitness insights to keep you motivated when you need it most. Running Coach⁷ calculates your fitness level from 1 to 10 and develops a tailored training plan complete with real-time guidance and motivational insights. With the updated Together feature, which now supports running, you can gamify your fitness journey by challenging friends and family.

If high level of stress persists, High Stress Alert will immediately signal so that you can take a break to help manage your stress levels in real-time. With Mindfulness Tracker, you can record your mood and receive guidance on breathing exercises to relieve your stress – all at once on your wrist.

Plus, the AI-powered Energy Score⁸ gives you a snapshot of your energy level, combining physical and mental energy metrics so you can have a healthier day, every day.

Easier Watch Interaction With Wear OS and Gemini

Developed in close collaboration with Google, the Galaxy Watch8 series is the first smartwatch to come out of the box with Gemini,⁹ Google’s AI assistant, and be powered by Wear OS 6. Go hands-free using natural voice commands to get things done on the go with your Galaxy Watch apps like Samsung Health, Calendar, Reminder and Clock. For example, you can ask Gemini to find a nearby cafe and text a friend to meet you there, all in one go. Or, if you’re ready to start your workout and you have a goal in mind, simply say, “Start a 30-minute run.” The watch seamlessly initiates the workout in Samsung Health.

In addition, thanks to the new One UI 8 Watch, the user interface is optimized for the size and shape of the watch face. The new Multi-Info Tiles provide easy access to health metrics, weather, events and more – all in a single, quick look. Moreover, the new Now Bar and depthless notifications ensure key activities are front and center.

Tailored To Match Every Lifestyle

Galaxy Watch8, Galaxy Watch8 Classic and the new Galaxy Watch Ultra are available for pre-order in select markets starting today, with general availability starting July 25.¹⁰

Featuring a sleek and minimalist design, Galaxy Watch8 is designed for everyday wellness. Available in 44mm or 40mm sizes and in Graphite or Silver, it provides comfort and style for daily activities. Meanwhile, Galaxy Watch8 Classic brings timeless sophistication to the wrist with modern features such as a rotating bezel and a quick button for added convenience. The Classic model measures 46mm and comes in Black and White. Plus, both models can be matched with a range of stylish bands¹¹ designed to suit diverse lifestyles.

For those who love outdoor adventures, Galaxy Watch Ultra is the most advanced and durable Galaxy Watch model yet. Available in four titanium finishes including the new Titanium Blue, it offers the longest battery life and the most robust performance in the lineup.

If you’re looking for a more discreet wearable that offers continuous health tracking, Galaxy Ring boasts superior comfort and up to seven days of battery life. Available in Titanium Black, Titanium Silver and Titanium Gold, the Galaxy Ring comes in sizes 5-15.¹¹

To learn more about Galaxy Watch8 and Galaxy Ring, please visit: www.samsungmobilepress.com, news.samsung.com/global, www.samsung.com/galaxy-watch or http://www.samsung.com/galaxy-ring.

Galaxy Watch8 Series Specifications

¹ Availability and  features may vary depending on market, model and the smartphone paired. All functionality, features, specifications and other product information provided in this document including, but not limited to, the benefits, design, pricing, components, performance, availability, and capabilities of the product are subject to change without notice.
² Compared to the previous Galaxy Watches.
³ Intended for general wellness and fitness purposes only. Not intended for use in detection, diagnosis, treatment, monitoring or management of any medical condition or disease. Any health-related information accessed through the device and/or application should not be treated as medical advice. Users should seek any medical advice from a physician. Certain features may vary by market, carrier, or the device paired.
⁴ Based on 3 days of sleep analysis of user’s circadian rhythm and sleep pressure.
⁵ Wearing a compatible Galaxy Watch is required when sleeping for at least 3 of the most recent 14 days.
⁶ To measure, the user should place the center of their finger on the sensor at the back of the Watch and hold it for 5 seconds. While Antioxidant Index can be measured using any finger, the thumb is recommended for the most accurate result. Repeat measurement due to uneven skin texture may lead to different results.
⁷ Prior to starting the coach program, taking a running level test and receiving a level designation is required.
⁸ Only available when user register a compatible Galaxy Watch or Galaxy Ring at least once.
⁹ Gemini mobile app available on select devices, languages, and countries. Requires compatible Wear OS watch to be connected to a compatible device. Check responses for accuracy. Internet connection and set up may be required. Features may differ depending on subscription and account. Results for illustrative purposes and may vary. Google and Gemini are trademarks of Google LLC.
¹⁰ Color and size availability may vary by market.
¹¹ Sold separately. Availability of watch bands may vary by market or carrier.
¹² Measured without health sensors.
¹³ Measured without band.
¹⁴ Battery life is based on results from internal lab tests for typical usage pattern scenarios conducted by Samsung. Actual battery life may vary depending on different usage patterns, device model, network environment and other factors. Typical value tested under third-party laboratory conditions. Typical value is the estimated average value considering the deviation in battery capacity among battery samples tested under the IEC 61960 standard.
¹⁵ Testing conducted by Samsung using pre-released version of Galaxy Watch8 and Galaxy Watch8 Classic (BT & LTE), each paired to a Samsung phone; all devices tested with prerelease software, Galaxy Watch Magnetic Fast Charging USB C Cable (EP-OL300), and Samsung 25W USB C Power Adapter (EP-TA800). Charge time varies according to region, settings, usage patterns and environmental factors; actual results may vary. Samsung 25W USB C Power Adapter (EP-TA800) sold separately.
¹⁶ Wear OS Powered by Samsung works with phones running Android 12 or later with more than 1.5GB of memory. Compatible devices may vary by market, carrier or device brand.
¹⁷ LTE connectivity only available in LTE models.
¹⁸ Galaxy Watch8 series has obtained MIL-STD 810H Certification: It has undergone a test that repeats from -20°C (1Hr) to 50°C (1Hr) for a total 6 hours.
¹⁹ Device activation is only available after connecting to a smartphone that supports Google Mobile Services. Compatible devices may vary by market, carrier or device brand.