Next week, Samsung will share its latest lineup of innovative products designed to enhance users’ everyday lives, including updates that empower fitness and wellness routines. Ahead of the unveiling, we’d like to take the time to reflect our philosophy, achievements and progress that we have made as we approach our most recent step in our health journey.

The world has entered a new era of wellness, seeing a growing desire for a more nuanced understanding of overall health. In the past, health was a simple concept with a single definition. Now, everyone defines health and wellness by what it means to them. To accommodate everyone’s health goals, Samsung is committed to ensuring everyone has access to the resources they need, so they can work towards the best version of themselves.

To that end, we are focused on setting new standards for health experiences through our Galaxy Watch series and across our broader product portfolio. We have established three key pillars to help people reach their own goals: sensor innovation, connected wellness and industry collaboration.

Advanced Sensors for More Meaningful Insights

To create healthier habits and reach goals, it’s important we know ourselves better. For our users, this journey starts with Samsung’s groundbreaking BioActive Sensor. The BioActive Sensor delivers accurate and comprehensive health data and provides actionable insights and guidance users can leverage during their health and wellness journey.

First introduced with the Galaxy Watch4, the BioActive Sensor uses a unique single chip that combines three powerful health sensors — Optical Heart Rate (PPG), Electrical Heart Signal (ECG) and Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) — into one compact unit. Its streamlined design enhances performance and fits comfortably for increased accuracy and 24/7 usage. This helps users deepen their understanding, encourages action and strengthens good habits to help them achieve their goals.

Our sensor provides insights across all aspects of health, but we’d like to highlight two key areas: sleep and body composition. Sleep is often an afterthought when establishing a solid wellness routine, but it is essential for holistic health. At Samsung, we’re serious about helping our community get better sleep. We’ve introduced various sleep quality tracking tools and launched a tailored sleep coaching program all aimed to help users get a more restful night’s sleep.

When it comes to fitness, in particular, everyone’s goals are different. That’s why BioActive Sensor also measures body composition, which deepens users’ knowledge of their physical health, far beyond merely losing weight. The sensor sends microcurrents to measure weight maintained, skeletal muscle gained, body fat lost and body water levels, relative to goals set, helping users hit targets and keep track of what matters to them.

Across these advancements, we remain intensely committed to the secure and private collection of data to give our users peace of mind during their wellness journeys. All health data is encrypted and secured on the device itself and guarded by Knox, ensuring users’ information remains isolated from unauthorized sources.

Wellness That Spans All Devices

We are also providing tools that allow consumers to track overall health and wellness — whether they’re at home, in the gym, or on the road. The Samsung Health app, with more than 200 million active global users, is at the center of Samsung’s health experience across an extensive range of devices, from smartwatches to smartphones to tablets and even TVs. The app — a holistic health hub that consolidates fitness, wellness and health monitoring capabilities — records and compiles all kinds of health data and activity information, presents them intuitively and gives guidance on how to leverage that data to maximize results. The collected information is comprehensive, easy-to-understand and encourages positive action.

More connected devices mean a more seamless and enhanced user experience. While following guided workout or meditation programs on Samsung Smart TVs or Galaxy Tabs at home, for example, your calorie count and heart rate are tracked on your Galaxy Watch but viewed on the larger screen for easier access. Your Galaxy Watch also recognizes when you fall asleep and automatically dims lights and turns off air conditioners in response.

Open Collaboration Means Better Health Experiences

To give our users the best experience possible, we partner with other leaders in technology and wellness. We have built a strong foundation with our technology, and we welcome collaboration on our open ecosystem — one that often serves as an incubator for exciting new applications, services and features. In collaboration with Google, we co-developed Wear OS and Health Connect so that more users can join the unified platform and take advantage of new services and solutions to meet everyone’s needs.

Samsung works extensively with third-party experts, research centers and universities to further advance wearable tracking and insight capabilities, including the National Sleep Foundation for sleep, the University of California San Diego Sleep Laboratory and the University of California, San Francisco Hypoxia Research Laboratory for sleep and blood oxygen research and Louisiana State University, Pennington Biomedical Research Center and the University of Hawaii Cancer Center for BIA research, to name a few. We’re also committed to researching new ways our health solutions can be used in the medical field. In the coming months, we’re focused on developing more tools and resources that will support the medical community and give our users a more holistic view of their health records.

The Promising Future of Health and Wellness

In the last few years, many people around the world have adopted new habits and interests. For many, these include a greater awareness of physical, mental and sleep health. To meet this demand, Samsung is excited to continue expanding our Galaxy Watch lineup to better cater to the many unique needs of our users — especially those with a passion for the outdoors.

Our work, however, does not stop there. We are constantly innovating and investing in research and development and exploring new ways to work with our trusted partners. Through open collaboration and focused innovation, we will ensure our users are equipped with advanced technologies that empower them to better understand their own minds and bodies for a truly integrated, holistic experience of health and wellness.

We can’t wait for you to see what’s next. Please be sure to tune in to Galaxy Unpacked on August 10 at 9:00 a.m. ET on Samsung.com.

A More Complete Watch Experience

To make it easier to interface with the watch, One UI Watch4.5 adds a full typing experience on screen. Whether you’re making searches or responding to messages and emails, you can take advantage of the new full QWERTY keyboard with Swipe to type in addition to dictating and handwriting, making communicating from your watch easier than ever.² Plus, instead of committing to just one method, One UI Watch4.5 lets you seamlessly switch inputs at any time, allowing you to start dictating a message then change to the keyboard if you need more privacy.

▲ (left) Swipe To Type on a New QWERTY Keyboard, (right) Seamlessly Swap Between Input Methods Anytime

Making calls is also more frictionless on the Galaxy Watch thanks to dual-SIM support on One UI Watch4.5.³ Users can set a preferred SIM on their Galaxy smartphone and have it automatically synced on their Galaxy Watch. An easy-to-read interface always shows you which SIM is being used on the Watch. If the SIM setting is set to “Ask always” on the phone, users can choose which SIM they’d like to use from their Galaxy Watch. Want to make calls without giving away your personal number? It’s your call to make — SIM1 or SIM2.

▲ An Easier Call To Make With Dual SIM Support

In addition to being an always-with-you communication tool, the Galaxy Watch offers more watch face customizability so it better compliments whatever you’re wearing. Enjoy your favorite watch face in various styles by adding the watch face to your favorite list multiple times and customizing each instance with different colors and complications.⁴ What’s more, on the favorite list, the watch faces you select are saved for quick access, so you don’t have to cycle through your entire collection.

▲ Easy and Fast Access to Your Favorite Watch Faces

Making Galaxy Watch More Accessible

The One UI Watch4.5 update also includes handy accessibility features enabling users to enjoy the full Galaxy Watch experience.

Users who have a difficult time distinguishing colors will be able to adjust the display to their preferred hue and increase contrast to make fonts easier to read. Other features for visual assistance include reduced transparency and blur effects as well as the removal of animations. In addition, auditory assistance for those who are hard of hearing allows users to balance the sound from the left and right audio output of their connected Bluetooth headset.⁵

▲ (left) Visual Accessibility Features Provide Clarity, (right) Hearing Enhancements Help Balance Sound

Those who need added support for touch inputs can extend the duration for screen tap interaction with Tap duration and can disable repeated touch inputs with Ignore repeated touches for better control.

▲ Touch Inputs Made Accessible With Interaction and Dexterity Options

For added support, users can adjust how long temporary functions, such as volume and notifications, stay on screen with Time to take action and can set the home button to toggle the most commonly used feature. All accessibility options can be accessed from one convenient menu, so you don’t have to dig through the settings to find them.

▲ Quick and Easy Access to Settings and Features

A full QWERTY keyboard, a more convenient calling experience along with a host of accessibility options on the upcoming One UI Watch4.5 are set to offer users a more complete Galaxy Watch experience. Galaxy One UI Watch4.5 is slated for release in the third quarter with more features to be announced. Be sure to ‘watch’ out for more to come on Samsung Newsroom.

* 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 may change without notice.

¹ One UI Watch 4.5 will be available for Galaxy Watch4, Galaxy Watch4 Classic and upcoming Galaxy Watch Series. Availability may vary depending on market, model and the paired smartphone.
² Availability of QWERTY keyboard and Swipe to type may vary depending on language.
³ Requires being paired with a dual-SIM Galaxy smartphone.
⁴ Watch face customization options are provided by watch face creator, and the availability may vary.
⁵ Not supported during calls.