Heart disease is the number one cause of death worldwide¹, which is why the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Heart Federation recognize Sept. 29 as World Heart Day. It is a reminder that the choices we make today can make a meaningful difference tomorrow.

These choices don’t have to be big. From choosing when to go to bed to making time for even just 30 minutes of exercise, the small choices we make every day add up to a healthier lifestyle. The good news is that Samsung Galaxy Watch can help you make proactive prevention part of daily life. By monitoring your sleep, activity level, stress, and blood pressure, Galaxy Watch helps you better understand what’s happening in your body and what steps to take to ensure your heart is doing its job well.

Understanding Your Body at a Glance: Heart Health Score

The American Heart Association recommends looking at Life’s Essential 8² as key measures for improving and maintaining cardiovascular health: diet, exercise, sleep, weight, blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol and smoking cessation. But knowing what matters raises an important question: how do these factors change the choices we make every day?

Samsung Health’s Heart Health Score is designed to help you in this journey. It tracks and analyzes complex health indicators such as sleep duration, daily activity level, body composition and vascular load³, converting them into a single, simple score that anyone can intuitively understand and follow.

Think about what happens if you miss your daily exercise for a few days: your Galaxy Watch recognizes your moderate-to-high intensity activity level has decreased, reflects this change in a lower Heart Health Score, and makes a recommendation to go for a run. With convenient insights right from your wrist, Galaxy Watch delivers personalized insights that make it easier to recognize changes, understand your habits, and take the next step toward healthier ones.

Advanced Sensor Technology: From Measurement to Meaning

Samsung Galaxy Watches are equipped with an advanced BioActive Sensor which integrates three precision sensors in one: an optical heart rate sensor (PPG), an electrocardiogram sensor (ECG)⁴, and a bioelectrical impedance analysis sensor (BIA).

With calibration just once every four weeks using a home blood pressure monitor, you can easily check your blood pressure⁵ from your wrist anytime, anywhere. When you place your finger on the watch’s side electrode for just 30 seconds, the watch measures an electrocardiogram to detect signs of abnormal heartbeats like atrial fibrillation or ectopic beats. The Irregular Heart Rhythm Notification (IHRN)⁶ feature, which detects abnormal heart signals, monitors the user’s heart rhythm throughout the day and provides a proactive notification if abnormal signs are repeated.

Even small reminders like this have the power to save lives. In several countries, these notifications have led to early detection of risks such as atherosclerosis or myocardial infarction.

Around-the-Clock Care: How Galaxy Watch Proactively Monitors Your Health Even During Sleep

Your heart is a constant you can count on, and it works whether you’re awake or asleep. When you wear your Galaxy Watch to sleep, it analyzes five major vital signs: heart rate during sleep, heart rate variability⁷, respiratory rate, skin temperature, and blood oxygen saturation. These signals are compared against your personal baseline.

When you wake up, your Galaxy Watch will send a notification if it detects meaningful deviations from your baseline. By highlighting meaningful changes early, it gives you an opportunity to rest, recover or seek medical guidance before small issues become larger concerns.⁸

Heart to Heart: Connected Care That Adds Peace of Mind

Looking after your own heart is only one side of the story. From parents to partners, siblings to grandparents or even friends, the burden of caring for the hearts of those around you weighs heavily. Samsung Health’s Health Data Sharing⁹ function lightens the load by sharing agreed-upon data items (number of steps, blood pressure, heart rate, medication adherence, etc.) with loved ones.

You can check if your parents who live far away have completed their daily walk or taken their prescribed medication on time, just as if you were right there with them.

World Heart Day coincides with the seasonal transition when chilly winds begin to blow in the mornings and evenings. As the temperature gap between day and night widens, blood vessels constrict, sharply increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease.

The key to preventing heart disease lies not in reactive treatment, but in proactive habits of paying close attention to the subtle signals your body sends every day. Start managing your heart health with Galaxy Watch, a reliable health partner that stays with you around the clock.

1. Source: World Health Organization (WHO), “Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs)” Fact Sheet (July 31, 2025), “The top 10 causes of death” (Aug. 7, 2024). ︎
2. Source: American Heart Association (AHA), “Life’s Essential 8” (2022). ︎
3. Vascular Load feature measures the degree of stress placed on the cardiovascular system during sleep and displays the trend of change compared to a baseline value. It continuously analyzes changes during sleep to provide a comprehensive score ︎
4. Electrocardiogram (ECG) feature records and analyzes subtle electrical signals of the heart when the user places a finger on Galaxy Watch’s top button for about 30 seconds, detecting atrial fibrillation (irregular and rapid quivering) and ectopic beats (premature irregular beats). ︎
5. Blood Pressure feature measures systolic and diastolic blood pressure by analyzing pulse waveforms with Galaxy Watch’s optical (PPG) sensor. An initial measurement using a separate cuff-type blood pressure monitor is required, and recalibration is needed every 4 weeks (28 days). ︎
6. Irregular Heart Rhythm Notification (IHRN) feature detects irregular patterns that may indicate atrial fibrillation through pulse monitoring and provides an early alert. ︎
7. Heart Rate Variability (HRV) feature analyzes minute-to-minute variations in the intervals between heartbeats to show autonomic nervous system balance. It is automatically recorded during sleep and resting states. ︎
8. Heart Health Score and Vitals features are supported on the Samsung Health app (version 7.0 or higher) ︎
9. Health Data Sharing feature requires user consent, and users can independently choose which health data to share (including steps, workouts, sleep, weight, body composition, food intake, heart rate, stress, blood pressure, blood glucose, medication and vital signs) ︎

The Health Forum held at Galaxy Unpacked July 2026 also shared Samsung’s Connected Care vision for the next chapter of digital health — a future where care moves from reactive treatment toward preventive, personalized, and connected experiences, supported by trusted health innovation and partnerships across the healthcare ecosystem. One technology that is helping power these new consumer experiences is the health foundation model.

Researchers from the Digital Health Team at Samsung Research America (SRA) are developing new AI technologies to continuously understand a person’s health state from biosignals, generate health insights, and offer appropriate health guidance.

Samsung researchers recently introduced two foundation models based on wearable data: xMAE (Physiology-Aware Masked Cross-Modal Reconstruction for Biosignal Representation Learning), which learns the temporal relationship between different biosignals, and HiMAE (Hierarchical Masked Autoencoder), which understands health patterns across different time scales in wearable time-series data. Both studies demonstrate advancement of health AI models that can better understand the physiological relationships and temporal structure of biosignals.

Samsung’s work on xMAE and HiMAE models was accepted to the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), and the International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR), respectively, highlighting the significance of this research.

Health Foundation Models That Read the Body’s Signals: Why They Matter for Health 

A health foundation model is an AI model that uses self-supervised learning to learn meaningful features from unlabeled biosignal data. After being pretrained on large-scale health data, the models can be applied to perform a wide range of downstream health tasks, including biosignal analysis, developing new or improved biomarkers, and health issue prediction.

xMAE AI model: Continuous Cardiac Insight from Wearables

An electrocardiogram (ECG) on wearables directly measures the electrical activity of the heart and is useful for measuring heart rate and heart rate variability, identifying abnormal heart rhythms and risks for conditions such as atrial fibrillation. ECG is highly accurate, but typically requires users to pause and take an active measurement. On the other hand, photoplethysmography (PPG) can indirectly measure cardiac function by detecting changes in blood flow and can be passively and continuously measured through sensors in wearable devices such as smartwatches.

The two signals originate from the same cardiac activity, but they appear with a certain time difference, much like thunder is heard after lightning is seen. xMAE is a biosignal pretraining framework designed to learn the temporal relationship between the two signals by reconstructing masked portions of the ECG signal using the more easily and continuously measured PPG signal. As a result, cardiovascular health-related features can be analyzed more precisely using PPG without requiring separate manual ECG measurements.

The researchers pretrained xMAE using approximately 9,400 hours of ECG and PPG data. The model outperformed unimodal biosignal models and existing multimodal learning methods in 15 of 19 evaluation tasks, including cardiovascular disease prediction, abnormal test-result detection, and sleep-stage classification. The study also confirmed the potential to use the learned features across different sensor devices, body locations and data-gathering environments.

HiMAE AI model: Reading the Body at Every Time Scale on the Device

Health data measured from wearable devices can reveal different information depending on the time scale at which it is analyzed. For example, short time segments can reveal rapidly changing signals such as heartbeats, while longer time segments can uncover patterns that accumulate over time, such as sleep or physical activity. This is similar to examining different information by zooming in and out of an image.

HiMAE is a self-supervised learning model that learns representation from wearable data across multiple time scales. It uses multiple encoders to analyze short and long segments separately, allowing the model to identify information required for each health task, such as heart rate analysis or sleep prediction, at the appropriate time scale. During training, the model reconstructs masked parts of the data. This enables it to learn key patterns in biosignals even when labeled data is limited.

A single pretrained HiMAE model handles classification, numerical prediction and data generation. The model achieved high performance while being smaller than existing models. It also improved computational efficiency to the point where it can produce results in less than one millisecond on a smartwatch-class central processing unit (CPU). Most importantly, HiMAE demonstrates the potential of on-device health foundation models for the first time — analyzing raw health signals in real time, without relying on cloud servers.

The Next Step Toward Connected Care

Together, xMAE and HiMAE, represent an advance in AI models that precisely understand the physiological relationships and temporal structures unique to biosignals. Both models aim to deliver precise, continuous, personalized health insights and to generalize across many health tasks from a single pretrained model. Hear more from the researchers behind this work below.

On July 22, Samsung Electronics hosted Galaxy Unpacked July 2026 at Old Billingsgate in London — unveiling its next-generation foldables with agentic AI.

Alongside Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, Galaxy Z Fold8 and Galaxy Z Flip8, Samsung introduced Galaxy Watch Ultra2 and Galaxy Watch9 with more advanced health features, as well as intelligent eyewear. Through a user-centered Galaxy ecosystem powered by AI, the company outlined its vision for delivering meaningful everyday experiences.

Samsung Newsroom recaps key moments from Galaxy Unpacked July 2026.

As AI becomes an integral part of daily life, mobile devices serve as the primary entry point for unlocking its full potential. What matters most is how AI can be meaningfully integrated into everyday life — seamlessly, intuitively and in ways that truly offer support. We are focused on bringing these intelligent experiences to our entire ecosystem, with Galaxy Watch playing a critical role as a health-first, always-on gateway for advanced, personalized AI.

Simply wearing the new Galaxy Watch is all it takes to experience a whole new level of effortless wellness. Galaxy Watch works continuously in the background, making comprehensive healthcare a seamless part of your daily routine. Powered by all-new internal components and enhanced battery life, the upcoming Watch is built to track your health for longer and with greater accuracy.

Galaxy Watch has always understood us in ways we can’t always see — tracking how we rest, move and sleep. Now enhanced with intelligent, AI-driven insights, it is evolving to help us better understand and proactively manage our health in real time.

Join us for Galaxy Unpacked on July 22 at 6.30 p.m. IST as we introduce the next evolution of Galaxy Watch. Discover how the new Galaxy Watch empowers you to take control of your wellness and live a healthier life within a connected AI ecosystem.

Wearable technologies have become a widely available and cost-effective way to capture continuous, real-world health data, making them extremely appealing for clinical research. However, many research programs struggle to translate wearable-generated signals into clinically meaningful evidence.

Samsung addresses this challenge through an integrated approach that combines its latest advancements in wearable technology with clinically validated measurements, including bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) and electrodermal activity (EDA), as well as Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) features such as obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and atrial fibrillation (AFib) detection, biomarker development expertise and research-related technical infrastructure designed to support evidence generation across the research lifecycle.

“The future of clinical research is increasingly collaborative and brings together technology, scientific expertise and research partners to generate a deeper understanding of human health,” said Jongmin Choi, Head of Health R&D Group, Mobile eXperience (MX) Business, Samsung Electronics. “Through our collaboration with Alcedis, Samsung is unlocking new opportunities for biomarker development, digital endpoint innovation and evidence generation throughout the research lifecycle.”

Samsung’s research platform starts with its cutting-edge devices and biosensors featured on Galaxy Watch that enable continuous collection of physiological data in real-world environments for users that have consented. With industry-leading wearable technology and a collaborative approach to developing measurement methodologies that provide a foundation for scientifically meaningful digital biomarkers and endpoints, Samsung’s research platform allows for faster study setup with fine-grained control of biosensors and access to participant- and device-level insights and biosensor data with respect to the study and established protocols.

As healthcare shifts toward more connected, data-driven models of care and research, Samsung is helping bridge the gap between everyday health monitoring and scientific discovery — enabling a new era of evidence generation that brings researchers closer to real-world insights and helps accelerate innovation across the healthcare ecosystem.

“The future of clinical research depends on our ability to capture meaningful health data beyond traditional clinical settings,” said Hanno Härtlein, CEO of Alcedis. “Our collaboration with Samsung brings together complementary strengths and scalable infrastructure to help advance endpoints and biomarker development, to accelerate evidence generation and support the development of more patient-centric healthcare innovations. Under our collaboration, Alcedis will lead study execution and participant engagement, while Samsung will provide its advanced wearable technology and research infrastructure to support evidence generation.”

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. today announced a major update to the Samsung Health app, transforming the upcoming Galaxy Watch into a proactive, intelligent health partner. Starting June 8, Samsung will begin rolling out the app update to showcase the key health features included in the upcoming Galaxy Watch. The update[1] makes daily health management effortless by translating complex biometric data — from overnight sleep to daily activity — into simple, actionable guidance.

“Samsung Health is evolving to connect health data measured by Galaxy Watch with AI-based insights, enabling users to understand their physical and mental condition more easily and intuitively,” said Hon Pak, Senior Vice President and Head of the Digital Health Team for the Mobile eXperience (MX) Business at Samsung Electronics. “Samsung Electronics will continue to expand proactive and personalized health management experiences based on the connected Galaxy ecosystem and digital health innovations.”

This advancement is a key milestone in Samsung’s overarching vision for a truly AI-powered health platform designed to help users stay ahead of their health. The newly announced health features will first be available on the upcoming Galaxy Watch.

Features Transforming Galaxy Watch into an Intelligent Health Partner

The Samsung Health update comes with the following features:

• Vitals: A Better Understanding of the Body’s Signals — Previously, Samsung Health monitored specific health metrics to help measure users’ daily Energy Score. Now, Samsung Health is taking this a step further. When users wake up, the new Vitals feature analyzes five key overnight bio-signals — heart rate, heart rate variability, respiratory rate, skin temperature and blood oxygen — against their true resting baseline. It sends notifications only when it detects meaningful deviations, helping users determine if they need more rest or are fighting an illness, without causing alert fatigue.

• Heart Health Score: Improved Long-Term Wellness — Last year, Samsung introduced Vascular Load to help users monitor vascular stress and adopt a more holistic approach to health. Today, that vision evolves into the Heart Health Score. This single daily metric takes the insights previously found in Vascular Load — such as sleep, stress and activity — and combines them with body composition data. The result is a unified score that clearly identifies the habits impacting users’ long-term well-being, giving them immediate clarity on their heart health.

• Daily Cardio Load: Smarter Cardiovascular Training — When users are deciding how hard to push during aerobic exercise, Daily Cardio Load measures accumulated cardiovascular strain. By calculating daily load and maximum training capacity, it recommends optimal training targets and rest times to ensure users reach their goals without risking burnout or injury.

• Fitness Index: Seamless Progress Tracking — The Fitness Index ensures exercise routines are working by analyzing metrics like heart rate, VO₂ max (a key measure of aerobic fitness) and daily steps against users’ peers. By clearly identifying individual physical strengths and weaknesses, it delivers tailored content and personalized goals so users can make continuous, targeted improvements.

New Samsung Health Design for a Simplified, Personal Experience

To make these proactive insights easy to find, Samsung Health introduces a streamlined layout organized into five core pillars: Sleep, Activity, Nutrition, Mindfulness and Vitals. Within the Home screen, users can now easily access their daily wellness tips alongside their AI-powered Energy Score. This centralized view removes guesswork from health management, allowing users to quickly understand how different aspects of their routine interconnect at a single glance.

Upgraded Capabilities for Proactive Wellness

Samsung Health is also significantly advancing the core features users already rely on, delivering deeper personalization with greater precision. As users navigate their day, Antioxidant Index now provides an even clearer roadmap of their nutritional intake. With new trend charts and daily history logs, it visually connects users’ dietary choices to physical responses over time. Behind the scenes, the AGEs index has been enhanced to quietly work in the background, capturing automatic overnight measurements to build a long-term picture of how lifestyle choices accumulate in users’ bodies. This helps users uncover health insights that truly matter for their well-being.

Comprehensive wellness extends to external environments, as well, with Samsung offering a brand-new Hearing Health feature that integrates seamlessly across the Galaxy ecosystem. By monitoring surrounding ambient noise through Galaxy Watch, it delivers personalized analytics to help protect the user’s ears — whether they are on a loud commute or dialing up the music during a workout.

Together, these advanced refinements and new ecosystem-connected features turn everyday data into simple, practical guidance, setting the perfect stage for the future of Samsung Health.

A Seamlessly Connected Health Ecosystem

Samsung’s expansive ecosystem unlocks the true power of these new features, seamlessly managing health across users’ Galaxy mobile phones and connected devices. This frictionless integration ensures that personalized insights are always accessible, providing a unified view of user well-being. These advancements offer a glimpse into the future of Samsung Health — a future that will be fully realized with the launch of Samsung’s next generation of Galaxy Watches, engineered to bring this proactive intelligence to life like never before.

[1] New health features are for wellness only, not for the diagnosis or treatment of any medical condition. If concerned about health, be sure to see a medical professional. Available on Android phones (Android 10 or above) and requires the Samsung Health app (v7.0 or above). Samsung account login required. Certain features may require user activity and data accumulation over time to enable personalized results. Feature availability, supported devices, and rollout timing may vary by market, model, and other factors and are subject to change.

Samsung today announced that a joint clinical study with Chung-Ang University Gwangmyeong Hospital in Korea has successfully validated the ability to predict vasovagal syncope (VVS) with high accuracy by utilizing biosignals obtained from Galaxy Watch6.

Vasovagal syncope occurs when a person’s heart rate and blood pressure drop abruptly due to factors like excessive stress, leading to a temporary loss of consciousness. While the fainting spell itself is typically not life-threatening, sudden falls can cause severe secondary injuries like fractures or concussions, making early prediction critically important for prevention.

“Up to 40% of people experience vasovagal syncope over their lifetime, with one-third experiencing recurrent episodes,” said Professor Junhwan Cho of the Department of Cardiology at Chung-Ang University Gwangmyeong Hospital. “An early warning could give patients advance time to get into a safe position or call for help, which would dramatically reduce the incidence of secondary injuries.”

The joint research team, led by Professor Cho, conducted evaluations on 132 patients with suspected VVS symptoms during induced fainting tests. Using a Galaxy Watch equipped with a photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor, the team analyzed the watch’s heart rate variability (HRV) data with an AI algorithm. The model successfully predicted impending fainting episodes up to five minutes in advance with 84.6 percent accuracy, at a clinically meaningful sensitivity of 90 percent and a specificity of 64 percent.

“This study is an example of how wearable technology can help shift healthcare from being designed for ‘post-care’ to a model of ‘preventive care,’” said Jongmin Choi, Head of Health R&D Group, Mobile eXperience (MX) Business, Samsung Electronics. “We are committed to driving technological innovation that empowers our users to lead healthier everyday lives.”

The research findings werepublishedin Volume 7, Issue 4 of “European Heart Journal – Digital Health,” a leading medical journal and they represent the world’s first study to successfully demonstrate the potential for a commercial smartwatch to provide early prediction of syncope.

Samsung plans to further advance the health monitoring capabilities of its wearable portfolio and expand collaboration with leading medical institutions. Through these efforts, the company aims to lead the digital health industry and accelerate the implementation of personalized, preventive health solutions.

Galaxy Watch: Get More Done, Hands-Free

With Gemini on yourGalaxy Watch, you can get hands-free assistance using natural voice commands to stay productive on the move. When running on the treadmill at the gym, simply ask Gemini to “Remember I’m using locker 43 today” so you can focus on your workout without a second thought. Or when you receive an important email while your hands are tied up carrying groceries, just ask Gemini to “Summarize my last email” for a quick overview. Gemini handles these requests across your apps, letting you quickly glance at the response and get right back to what you’re doing.

▲ With Gemini, Galaxy Watch users can stay productive without breaking stride.

Galaxy Buds: Seamless Device Interaction

When used withGalaxy Buds, the Gemini experience becomes even more seamless. By using voice or pinch and hold controls, you can activate Gemini on your Galaxy Buds and smoothly interact with your Galaxy smartphone. So when you are lacing up your running shoes before a jog, just ask Gemini, “What’s the weather for my run today?” without having to reach for your phone. With Gemini, a more intelligent Galaxy experience is at your fingertips.

Samsung’s air conditioners feature the ‘Good Sleep’ mode, helping people have pleasant sleep throughout the night by adjusting the temperature according to sleep stages. This mode has now been upgraded to allow users to connect their air conditioners with their Galaxy Watch series and Galaxy Ring, and have the ‘Good Sleep’ automatically activated when they fall asleep.[1]

 The Effect of Temperature on Good Sleep

While often overlooked, the influence of a suitable ambient temperature on sleep is immense. The common experience of waking up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat or shivering in cold, is relatable for most people. This year, as a result of global warming, various regions across the globe experience unusual temperature patterns, with nights growing even warmer relative to days. As a result, numerous individuals struggled to get quality sleep, adversely impacting their daily routines and overall mood.

The difficulty and frustration people go through when having trouble sleeping are also reflected in air conditioner sales. Samsung’s air conditioner sales results in Korea showed that sales increased on hot days, but among those hot days, it especially peaked when tropical nights had persisted for consecutive days. People were highly agitated when their sleep was disturbed by heat, indicating a need for more suitable sleeping temperatures. Based upon the observation, Samsung decided to develop a mode on its air conditioners to help people get better sleep during the night.

The key point in this mode however, was that the optimal temperature for sleep is not fixed for the entire period that a person sleeps. This is why although many set their air conditioner to the ‘optimal’ temperature before going to bed, they still wake up. It varies according to the sleep stage a person is at – whether a person is falling asleep, in deep sleep, or waking from sleep. The team, in 2015, partnered with Kyunghee University to find the optimal temperature for each sleep stage, and develop an adequate algorithm for the air conditioner.

How it Functions

The ‘Good Sleep’ mode fluctuates the indoor temperature over a course of a person’s sleep cycle. Sleep consists of 5 stages – wake, REM (Rapid eye movement), and 3 stages of NREM (Non-rapid eye movement sleep). Each stage of sleep includes variations in brain wave patterns, eye movements, and body temperature. These five stages make up one complete sleep cycle which typically lasts about 90 minutes. Throughout the night, this cycle repeats itself approximately four to six times.

The ‘Good Sleep’ cycle adjusts the indoor temperature according to the stage. First, when a person falls asleep, temperature is quickly lowered within 5 minutes to immediately create a pleasant environment. The temperature is kept low consistently during the next 90 minutes to facilitate deeper sleep. Starting from 90 minutes, the air conditioner increases the temperature to prepare for the deeper stages of sleep – N2 and N3. In these stages, body temperature and blood pressure fall the most, indicating that outer temperature needs to be warmer. Temperature is increased within two degrees above target level to prevent awakening due to cold sensation.

Throughout the eight-hour sleep cycle, alternating periods of lighter REM sleep and deeper NREM sleep occur. The ‘Good Sleep’ mode continually modifies the temperature throughout the night, adjusting it approximately three times. Approaching the end of sleep, temperature is kept high, but gentle wind is blown to create a refreshing atmosphere.

Algorithm for Good Sleep Mode, under condition of Target temperature 24 °

In WindFree air conditioners, the Good Sleep mode works with WindFree cold air, and for normal models, air is blown out to meet the target temperature.

Automation with Galaxy Wearables

By connecting with the Galaxy Watch series or Galaxy Ring[2], users can seamlessly enjoy the benefits of the Good Sleep mode without manual adjustments via remotes. Upon purchasing either device, users can enable automatic activation and deactivation of the air conditioner through settings. Once configured, whenever the wearable detects that the user has begun sleeping, it initiates the Good Sleep mode accordingly. If the air conditioner was previously turned off, it will be switched on with the appropriate target temperature for Good Sleep. Alternatively, if it is already running but set too cold, it will adapt to a more comfortable sleeping temperature.

Samsung first attempted this connection back in 2018, before wearables had developed into a steady market like now. Members of the product planning team and software team pioneered collaboration of wearables and home appliances. However, it was only in 2023 when this service properly took place as a feature. By then, the wearable market itself had grown, and it had matured enough so that users even wore the devices to bed. Kyungju Lee, who took part in the project 6 years ago and now leads product planning for Room Air Conditioners, says, “We could see just by looking at friends and family around us, that the interest people had in the quality of their sleep had increased immensely. We felt that we needed to re-launch the feature we’d attempted in 2018. The right timing had come.”

[1] Available for Room Air Conditioners – AR**B******, AR**C******, AR**D****** with Wi-Fi. Requires mobile phones above Galaxy S22, and wearable devices above Galaxy Watch4 series or Galaxy Ring.

Must download SmartThings/Wearable/Samsung Health apps available on Android and iOS devices. A Wi-Fi connection and a Samsung account are required. Devices must be signed in with the same Samsung account.

[2] Possible through models above Galaxy Watch4 series and Galaxy Ring

▲ Photo copyright: Regents of the University of Michigan. Eric Bronson/Michigan Photography.

Samsung Electronics, together with the University of Michigan, today announced that the University of Michigan Human Performance & Sport Science Center (HPSSC) — renowned for its integrated and comprehensive sport, exercise, and human performance-related research and education — has validated the high accuracy of Samsung Galaxy Watch’s fitness tracking features.

HPSSC’s Michigan Performance Research Laboratory (MiPR) found a significant correlation between Galaxy Watch and the clinical and sport science reference devices’ measurement of heart rate, sweat loss, VO₂max and body fat percentage measurements, validating the reliability of Galaxy Watch’s monitoring capabilities. This partnership demonstrates how the collaboration between the two organizations makes advanced and precise fitness solutions to more people.

The MiPR studies verified the accuracy of Galaxy Watch’s fitness tracking features by monitoring key metrics from elite runners, including:

• Heart rate:As the most commonly checked health metric during workouts, heart rate measures how hard the heart works during physical activity. Findings show an excellent 90% correlation with electrocardiogram equipment while running, the gold standard in heart rate measurement.
• Sweat loss: Sweat loss estimates the amount of fluid lost during physical activity and helps guide proper hydration after workouts. The study found a 95% correlation for Galaxy Watch in assessing sweat loss over varying distances ranging from 2.5 km to 20 km.
• VO₂max: Understanding how much oxygen the body absorbs during a workout helps individuals assess their fitness levels and set optimal goals and limits. The study demonstrated an 82% correlation, indicating acceptable alignment between Galaxy Watch and clinical-grade diagnostic equipment.
• Body fat percentage: Measuring a person’s body fat percentage allows for a better understanding of physical health and fitness than tracking body weight alone. Galaxy Watch readings showed a 95% correlation with dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) results, the standard diagnostic test for body composition using low-dose X-rays.

“We’re proud to be recognized by the renowned Michigan Performance Research Laboratory — their skilled researchers and expertise in wearable technology give us confidence in the accuracy of the Galaxy Watch’s fitness tracking capabilities,” said Dr. Hon Pak, Senior Vice President and Head of Digital Health Team, Mobile eXperience Business at Samsung Electronics. “We are committed to delivering precise and insightful fitness tracking experiences through strategic partnerships and advanced research.”

“Our partnership with Samsung exemplifies the power of combining industry-leading expertise with pioneering independent research at the academic level,” said Co-PIsAdam Lepley, MiPR director and associate director of HPSSC research. “Together, we can advance scientific discovery and provide information back to consumers that will enhance the use of Samsung’s technology. This synergy underscores the power of uniting academic excellence with industrial innovation, and we are grateful for this collaboration.”

“We are excited to continue our partnership with Samsung to ensure that innovations in wearable technology are accessible and accurate across all segments of the population,” saidKenneth Kozloff, HPSSC co-director. “HPSSC and MiPR are eager to unveil these outstanding outcomes that solidify our commitment to enhancing heart rate and health monitoring and are look forward to future collaborations.”

The following tips can enhance your fitness journey with the Galaxy Watch series, from setting personal goals to post-workout recovery:

• Body composition¹: Get a comprehensive snapshot of your body, including body fat percentage, body water content and skeletal muscle mass. Set personalized goals based on your current body status and track your progress.
• Personalized heart rate zone:Creating a personalized heart rate zone tailored to your activities allows you to align your health and wellness objectives, and train at optimal intensity levels according to your physical capabilities.
• VO₂max²: Gain deeper insight into your fitness levels by analyzing how much oxygen your body uses during physical activity. VO₂max is widely regarded as the best indicator of cardiovascular endurance.
• Sweat loss:After a run, measure your sweat loss and re-hydrate appropriately after each workout based on data​ for improved recovery.

About HPSSC and MiPR.

The Human Performance & Sport Science Center supports and grows integrated and comprehensive sport, exercise, and human performance-related research and education across the University of Michigan. Through innovative and cross-disciplinary projects, HPSSC seeks to translate sport and exercise research discoveries into communities of all types, ages, and abilities. HPSSC’s Michigan Performance Research Laboratory (MiPR) helps elite athletes and everyday exercisers achieve their personal best. The MiPR team investigates the biomechanics and physiology of human movement to optimize function, enhance injury resiliency, and ensure lifelong health. Learn more at hpssc.umich.edu and hpssc.umich.edu/performance-lab.

¹ Body Composition is only supported in Samsung Galaxy Watch4 series and later released Galaxy Watch models. Body Composition should not be used if you have an implanted pacemaker or other implanted medical devices, or if you are pregnant. Any health-related information accessed through the device and application should not be treated as medical advice. Measurement results may not be accurate if you are under 20 years old. The measurements are for your personal reference only. Please consult a medical professional for advice.
² Accurate VO2 max reading requires running outdoors for at least 20 minutes with GPS on; consult user manual before use.