The training is nearly done, your kit is ready and the start line is approaching. But have you explored the features on your smartwatch that could support your final preparations?

Ahead of the Royal Parks Half Marathon, Samsung shares tips from UK Product Specialist Lee Dinham to help runners make more of their Galaxy Watch9 and Galaxy Watch Ultra2.

How can I keep an eye on my training and recovery?

Galaxy Watch’s Daily Cardio Load feature provides insights into your activity levels, helping you consider when to ease off¹. As race day approaches, use those insights alongside how you feel when planning your remaining sessions.

“I think we’re all guilty of not getting enough rest and recovery time,” says Lee.  “The Daily Cardio Load feature gives a great indication of if I’m doing too much – or not enough – and will give me a nudge to take it easy every so often.”

How can I understand my sleep before race day?

Lee also recommends exploring the broader health insights available on Galaxy Watch, including Sleep Score in Samsung Health².

During your final preparations, make time to review your sleep alongside your activity, rather than focusing solely on the miles you’ve covered.

How can I quickly access my favourite workout(s)?

One of Lee’s favourite hands-free shortcuts is Galaxy Watch’s “knock knock” gesture, which can launch an exercise or a favourite app.

His advice is to assign the gesture to a function you regularly use, so you can access it with a movement of your hand.

How can I get a quick answer when my hands are full?

With Raise to Talk, lift your Galaxy Watch towards your mouth to speak to Google Gemini³. Whether you want to check the weather before setting off or ask a last-minute question while carrying your race bag, you can get a quick answers on the go.

Lee names Raise to Talk as his favourite feature on Galaxy Watch9 and Galaxy Watch Ultra2, finding it useful for quick answers on the move, “especially without having to reach for my smartphone”.

Whether you’re taking on your first half marathon or returning for another race, spending a few minutes exploring your watch before the weekend can help you feel more familiar with the features you’ll use.

1. Not intended for use in detection, diagnosis, treatment of any medical condition or sleep disorder. The measurements are for your personal reference only. Please consult a medical professional for advice. ︎
2. Not intended for use in detection, diagnosis, treatment of any medical condition or sleep disorder. The measurements are for your personal reference only. Please consult a medical professional for advice. ︎
3. Requires compatible Wear OS watch to be connected to a compatible device. Check responses for accuracy. Internet connection and set up may be required. Google and Gemini are trademarks of Google LLC. ︎

Heart disease is the number one cause of death worldwide¹, which is why the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Heart Federation recognise 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 Score³ is designed to help you in this journey. It tracks and analyses complex health indicators such as sleep duration, daily activity level, body composition and vascular load⁴, 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 recognises 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 personalised insights that make it easier to recognise changes, understand your habits, and take the next step toward healthier ones.

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)⁵ and a bioelectrical impedance analysis sensor (BIA).

Advanced Sensor Technology: From Measurement to Meaning

With calibration just once every four weeks using a home blood pressure monitor, you can easily check your blood pressure⁶ 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)⁷ 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 notifications⁸ 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 analyses five major vital signs: heart rate during sleep, heart rate variability⁹, 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 concerns¹⁰.

Galaxy Watch and Samsung Health give users a clear view of their sleep quality with detailed metrics and insights they can use to improve their sleep habits.

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 Sharing¹¹ function lightens the load by sharing agreed-upon data items (number of steps, blood pressure, heart rate, medication adherence, etc.) with loved ones in real time.

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. Heart health tracking features are intended for general wellness and fitness purposes only. Not intended for use in detection, diagnosis, treatment of any medical condition or sleep disorder. ︎
4. Service only available with Galaxy Watch Ultra or later released Galaxy Watch Series. To measure vascular load, it is required to wear Galaxy Watch when sleeping for at least 3 days out of recent 14 days. ︎
5. Electrocardiogram (ECG) feature records and analyses 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). Requires a Galaxy smartphone running Android 12 or above. Not intended for use by people under 22 years old. Users should not interpret or take clinical action based on the device output without consultation of a qualified healthcare professional. ︎
6. Blood Pressure feature measures systolic and diastolic blood pressure by analysing 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). Requires a Galaxy smartphone running Android 12 or above. Not intended for use by people under 22 years old. Users should not interpret or take clinical action based on the device output without consultation of a qualified healthcare professional. ︎
7. Irregular Heart Rhythm Notification (IHRN) feature detects irregular patterns that may indicate atrial fibrillation through pulse monitoring and provides an early alert. ︎
8. Source: “When Every Second Counts: Galaxy Watch Series Health Features Help Save Lives,” Samsung Newsroom. ︎
9. Heart Rate Variability (HRV) feature analyses minute-to-minute variations in the intervals between heartbeats to show autonomic nervous system balance. It is automatically recorded during sleep and resting states. ︎
10. Heart Health Score and Vitals features are supported on the Samsung Health app (version 7.0 or higher). ︎
11. 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). ︎

According to research commissioned by Samsung to celebrate the launch of Galaxy Watch9 and Galaxy Watch Ultra2, one in four Brits wake up feeling grumpy, drained or easily irritated several times a week, rising to seven in 10 when looking specifically at Millennials and Gen Z.

Over a third (35%) of the nation regularly start the day feeling tired, low on energy or simply not quite themselves, with nearly two thirds (63%) admitting the way they feel when they wake up often affects the rest of their day.

Lack of motivation (49%), irritability (32%), feeling emotionally low (31%) and stressed (28%) are just some of the things Brits feel when they haven’t slept well.

While these feelings have often been dismissed as simply ‘waking up on the wrong side of the bed’, the findings suggest many consumers are becoming increasingly interested in understanding what may sit behind these changes in mood, energy and wellbeing.

In fact, 84% say they would like a deeper understanding of what their body is telling them when they wake up feeling different to usual.

The findings suggest people are thinking differently about their sleep and wellbeing, looking beyond hours slept to better understand how their bodies recover overnight. Rather than simply reacting to how they feel each morning, many want more personalised insights into their health over time.

That shift is fuelling interest in tools that make those signals easier to read. Samsung Health’s new Vitals¹ feature, available on Galaxy Watch9 and Galaxy Watch Ultra2, tracks five overnight bio-signals like heart rate and skin temperature against a user’s usual patterns to detect changes in recovery and overall wellbeing, helping users better understand their overnight recovery and the signals their bodies may be giving them.

Reflecting this shift towards proactive health management, nearly two thirds (63%) say they pay closer attention to their health than they did five years ago, while 54% say they are more proactive about monitoring their wellbeing today than in the past.

As consumers increasingly look to understand what their bodies are telling them, personalised health insights are becoming an important part of helping people make informed decisions about their daily wellbeing.

Many are already turning to technology to support this approach to health. The study found as a nation, we’re already tracking at least one aspect of health or wellbeing, such as sleep (35%), weight/body composition (34%), activity levels (29%), nutrition (25%), heart health (21%) or stress (20%), while 66% believe technology can help them better understand the signals their bodies are giving them and support healthier everyday habits.

As awareness grows around the connection between sleep, recovery and overall wellbeing, the findings suggest that waking up on the wrong side of the bed may sometimes have less to do with mood and more to do with the signals our bodies are giving us about how well we have recovered overnight.

By analysing multiple signals together, rather than focusing on a single measurement, Samsung Health’s Vitals provides greater context around how the body is responding overnight and can help users better understand mornings when they wake up feeling unusually tired, low on energy or below their best.

Galaxy Watch9 and Galaxy Watch Ultra2 are available to purchase now, with prices starting from £349 and £649 respectively at Samsung.com/uk.

1. Not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of any medical condition. If you have health concerns, be sure to see a medical professional. Vitals is available on Android phones (Android 11 or above) and requires the Samsung Health app (v7.0 or above). Samsung account login required. ︎

Brits have embraced a new era of optimisation, with people investing more time, money and energy into improving their health and performance – but new research suggests one of the most powerful performance tools is still being overlooked: recovery, with just 23% saying resting and recovering properly is something they prioritise when working towards a fitness goal.

From premium running shoes and protein powders to wearable technology and wellness subscriptions, the pursuit of peak performance has become big business, with Brits increasingly adopting the habits and tools once associated with professional athletes.

New research from Samsung for the Galaxy Watch Ultra2, found 82% say improving their physical health is a priority, while more than half (54%) hope to exercise more regularly over the next 12 months.

Yet despite this focus on optimisation, 48% agree rest and recovery are just as important as exercise, but 18% admit they find it difficult to prioritise, and just a quarter (25%) actively plan rest or recovery days into their routine.

In fact, more than half (55%) find the recovery process a hindrance, with 89% admitting they have pushed through tiredness to hit a fitness target or step count, rather than prioritising recovery.

The research reveals a growing ‘recovery gap’ between the effort people put into training and the attention they give to recovery. While Brits are increasingly adopting athlete-like approaches to performance, from tracking workouts to chasing personal bests, many are overlooking the role sleep, recovery and listening to their body play in helping them perform at their best.

And that imbalance could be making it harder to stay on track. Fitness goals fall by the wayside after an average of 33 days, while 37% have abandoned a fitness goal within 30 days of starting it.

But Brits recognise the potential benefits of understanding their bodies better. Seven in 10 (70%) agree that understanding how their body is responding to training and recovery would help them improve their fitness or performance, while 34% say personalised recovery insights would help them know when they need to rest and recover.

Experts say pushing harder isn’t always the answer. While exercise provides the stimulus for the body to adapt, it’s during recovery – through quality sleep, rest and allowing the body to repair – that those fitness gains are made.

Olympic medallist Max Whitlock, who has partnered with Samsung, says: “Recovery isn’t the reward for training, it’s part of the training. The sessions everyone sees are only possible because of everything that happens afterwards.

“Understanding when your body needs rest is just as important as knowing when to push.” 

For many Brits, knowing when to rest is still based largely on instinct. Adults are more likely to assess how their body is responding to exercise and recovery based on how they feel physically (53%) or their level of tiredness (40%), rather than taking a set approach (15%).

This comes as on 16% admit they only take a rest day if they feel sore, tired or run down.

Samsung’s Galaxy Watch Ultra2 helps users take a more informed approach to training and recovery through personalised health insights, helping them better understand how their body is responding to exercise, sleep and rest.

Annika Bizon, Mobile Experience VP of Product and Marketing, Samsung UK & Ireland, says: “More people are taking their fitness seriously and challenging themselves to achieve more, but our research shows there’s still a gap between how people train and how they recover. In many ways, we’re training like athletes but recovering like amateurs.

“People want to be better informed about their health and what their bodies are telling them, and this is where technology can play an important role. By turning personal health data into tailored, actionable insights, people can understand when they might be ready to push themselves and when they might need more rest.”

Energy Score on the Galaxy Watch Ultra2 brings together insights including sleep, activity and heart rate to provide a daily indication of physical and mental readiness, while Daily Cardio Load¹ helps users understand the impact their workouts are having on their body over time.

Alongside detailed sleep tracking and personalised fitness features, Galaxy Watches can help users take a more informed approach to both sides of the performance equation – knowing when to push and when recovery should take priority. 

Additional stats:

• 36% of Brits struggle to stay motivated when the initial excitement of setting their goal wears off
• 27% say having more time in their schedule would help them stay on track with their fitness goals
• 34% admit they find it difficult to fit exercise around everyday commitments

1. To use the features, at least 7 days of activity records are required, while 28 days of continuous wear is recommended for optimal accuracy. Please note that values may increase in daily situations where heart rate rises, such as during tension, anxiety or stress. ︎

At Galaxy Unpacked July 2026 in London on July 22, Dr. Hon Pak, Senior Vice President and Head of the Digital Health Team, Mobile eXperience (MX) Business at Samsung Electronics, sat down with cognitive neuroscientist and science communicator Dr. Dong-seon Chang to explore how AI could make health management simpler and more connected.

Dr. Pak explained how the body changes from day to day and how AI can learn an individual’s daily rhythms and patterns to help transform fragmented health data into more meaningful, personalised guidance. He also introduced Samsung Health’s Connected Care vision, extending beyond devices and data to connect people — from healthcare professionals and families to partners across the broader health ecosystem.

Ultimately, the conversation pointed to a broader question of how society can embrace AI while keeping people at the centre.

Watch the video below to learn more about Samsung’s vision for healthcare that is simpler, more connected, and human-centred.

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, personalised 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 unlabelled 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 analysed 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 analysed. 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 analyse 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 labelled 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—analysing 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, personalised health insights and to generalise across many health tasks from a single pre-trained model. Hear more from the researchers behind this work below.

To explore that vision, Samsung hosted a Health Forum panel, “Rewriting the Rules of Preventive Health.” Moderated by Dr. Hon Pak, Senior Vice President and Head of the Digital Health Team, Mobile eXperience (MX) Business at Samsung Electronics, the session brought together leaders across nutrition, fitness, clinical research and AI to examine how technology can close the gap between knowing and doing in everyday health.

▲ (From left) Otávio Penatti, Kevin Duffy, Moderator Dr. Hon Pak. Rohit Ail, Kartik Poria

The Paradox — and the “Missing Miles” of Health

Opening the discussion, Dr. Pak described a paradox at the heart of modern health: innovation and technology today has been transformational and accelerating, yet chronic disease continues to rise around the world.

“We live in the most measured era in human history — billions of people track their sleep, their stress, their heart rate every single day. And yet chronic disease keeps rising. More data, it turns out, hasn’t resulted in better health.”

He framed the disconnect as two “missing miles.” The first mile is detection and monitoring: much of what shapes our health happens outside the clinic, and until recently, continuous monitoring was neither available nor connected to the physician. The last mile is action: even after a diagnosis and a care plan, it is the individual who has to act day after day — and life is busy, and change is hard.

▲ Dr. Hon Pak

Samsung, Dr. Pak argued, is uniquely positioned to close both gaps. With technology that stays with people throughout their daily lives — across wearables, mobile phones, and a connected ecosystem — Samsung can understand not just raw biometric numbers, but the context behind them.

“We don’t just see a number — we see what’s around it: whether this is a moment you’re ready to change something, or a moment you need a bit of support. Being there, at the point where personal decisions actually get made, is hard for a hospital, or any other company, to measure or act upon.”

But no single company can do this alone. That, he said, is why Samsung is building Connected Care together with partners — closing the first and last mile to scale prevention, with AI as the enabler across both. He introduced the three focus areas that would structure the conversation: everyday behaviour, clinical credibility and privacy, and advanced AI and research.

Everyday Behaviour: Closing the Last Mile at the Dinner Table and the Gym

Diet and exercise are two of the biggest levers on long-term health — and two of the most within our control. They are also, Dr. Pak noted, where the gap between knowing and doing is widest.

Kartik Poria, Head of Product at Samsung Food, located that gap in a moment everyone recognises.

“It’s Tuesday, six o’clock. You’re tired, you’re staring into the fridge, and everything you know about eating well loses to whatever’s quickest. That moment is what we’re going after — because what you eat, day after day, is one of the biggest levers we have on preventing chronic disease.”

He described how Samsung Health and Samsung Food are coming together to tackle two halves of the same problem: Samsung Health surfaces what is happening beneath the surface — indicators such as meal logs, BMI, the Antioxidant Index and the AGEs Index — while Samsung Food’s global recipe library facilitates meal planning and its food intelligence reflect how people actually like to eat. Sitting on top is a nutrition experience grounded in behaviour change science rather than tracking alone — learning a person’s habits and working with them so the healthier pattern becomes the easier one.

“We’re not adding another thing to manage — we’re making the healthy choice the easy one, for the night you’ve got the energy to cook and the night you don’t.”

▲ Kartik Poria from Samsung Food

Turning to movement, Kevin Duffy, CEO of iFIT, described exercise as foundational to both physical and mental wellbeing, and explained how iFIT’s expert-led programs are becoming more accessible through Samsung Health.

“Exercise is vital for both physical and mental wellbeing — cardiovascular health, strength, mobility, sleep quality, stress management.”

Through Samsung Health, users can discover and subscribe to iFIT’s premium fitness programs, while iFIT workouts integrate with Galaxy Watch so users can track key metrics during guided sessions. With Fitness Index, they receive a holistic view of their physical fitness in a single, easy-to-understand score, with personalised recommendations. Looking ahead, Duffy pointed to Samsung’s Health Assistant as a way to bring a user’s Fitness Index, goals and activity history together to surface the most relevant workout at the right moment.

“Exercise is not just about being active — it’s about understanding your body, building sustainable habits, and having the right guidance at the right time. By combining iFIT’s expert-led experiences with Samsung Health’s connected insights, we can help more people make movement a meaningful part of their everyday lives.”

▲ Kevin Duffy from iFIT

But content and insights alone, Dr. Pak noted, don’t close the last mile. The harder question is how to move from engagement to activation. Samsung designs for real life, recognising that people slip and miss goals most of the time — and that those moments are precisely when timely, well-contextualised support matters most.

The real measure, he argued, is not how often the system nudges someone, but how many healthy actions actually happen — a doctor’s low-salt advice quietly showing up as items in a grocery cart, or a workout that meets a person where they actually are that day. Poria added that this is the true shift: from nudging people to changing the choice in front of them.

Clinical Credibility and Privacy: Trust Earned Through Evidence

Dr. Pak turned next to the question of trust — noting that wearable data is now something most clinicians have seen, but far fewer have been able to build into their day-to-day care. Closing that gap, he said, is a matter of evidence, workflow and trust.

Rohit Ail, Head of the Technology Incubation Lab at Samsung R&D Institute UK (SRUK), spoke to how his team works to generate clinical evidence in real-world settings.

“Our goal is to meet the standards expected by clinicians, researchers and regulatory bodies, and that means generating evidence in real-world clinical environments. This commitment builds on Samsung’s growing body of clinical research and validation evidence.”

He referenced ongoing collaborations across Europe, including partnerships with the NHS and clinical validation studies with leading hospitals. With San Cecilio University Hospital in Spain and Gemelli in Italy, Samsung is working on identifying and managing cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk using AI and decision-support technologies; with Fondazione IRCCS in Italy, the focus is on understanding and addressing the late effects faced by adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer survivors through AI-based digital phenotyping and a non-invasive, holistic approach.

On privacy, Ail noted that Samsung considers user data to belong to the user, with Samsung acting as custodian.

“Trust begins with protecting users’ data. Samsung takes a three-layer approach: Samsung Knox for device-level security, GDPR-compliant infrastructure, and alignment with the European Health Data Space framework.”

He added that SRUK has also developed a Decentralized Clinical Trial framework, in which participant identities remain under the control of healthcare organisations and data is pseudonymised from the outset.

▲ Rohit Ail from Samsung R&D Institute UK

Advanced AI and Research: Reading the Body’s Signals

If everyday reach and clinical trust are two of the three pillars, intelligence is what binds them together. Dr. Pak introduced foundation models as a genuine turning point — a shift from population averages to something truly personal.

Otávio Penatti, Head of the Health AI R&D Team at Samsung R&D Institute Brazil (SRBR), explained what a foundation model for health actually means.

“A health foundation model is an AI model that uses self-supervised learning to learn meaningful features from unlabelled biosignal data. At Samsung, we are advancing health foundation model research across multiple global research teams, combining expertise in biosignal intelligence, wearable AI, and personalised health insights. Building on the success of large language models, we can now interpret complex biosignals — such as ECG, ACC and PPG — not as isolated data points, but as a structured biological language. These signals can be measured through wearable devices in everyday situations, and by applying foundation models to understand these biological patterns, we have the potential to provide more accurate predictions and continuous, personalised health insights.”

▲ Otávio Penatti from Samsung R&D Institute Brazil

Three Focus Areas, One Goal

To close, Dr. Pak asked each panelist for a one-sentence vision of Connected Care in the era of AI five years from now.

• Kartik Poria (Samsung Food): “In five years, eating well won’t run on willpower — it’ll feel like having a chef and a dietitian in your pocket, turning what your body needs into what’s for dinner, day after day.”
• Kevin Duffy (iFIT): “A coach that knows your body and adapts every workout to who you are that day.”
• Rohit Ail (SRUK): “Care that clinicians trust and patients control — evidence-based and private by design.”
• Otávio Penatti (SRBR): “AI that understands the body’s language and acts before problems begin.”

Dr. Pak closed by tying the threads together: everyday behaviour, clinical trust and personal AI — three focus areas, one goal of closing the first and last mile to scale prevention while meeting people where they are.

“The future of health is connected, trusted and proactive — and it’s a road we’re glad to be traveling together.”

Britain is becoming a nation of health trackers, with eight in 10 adults now actively monitoring at least one aspect of their wellbeing – from what they eat and how well they sleep to their heart rate – as they look to prevent health problems before they arise.

The findings reveal a growing shift towards personal health, as consumers increasingly seek to understand how their everyday habits may be influencing their bodies before serious health issues develop.

According to the research commissioned by Samsung, which recently announced a major update to Samsung Health, transforming the new Galaxy Watch Series into a proactive, intelligent health partner, 55% of Brits say they are more proactive about monitoring their health today than they were five years ago.

Rather than waiting until something feels wrong, many Brits are now using everyday health insights to identify patterns in their behaviour and make positive lifestyle changes.

The study found that 42% actively monitor how many hours they sleep each night, 43% track their daily step count, while 52% regularly keep an eye on their heart rate through connected health technology.

This growing awareness is already influencing behaviour, with 64% saying they have made changes to their lifestyle after reviewing health data and insights. The most common actions include improving their diet (53%), walking more (50%) and taking steps to improve their sleep (29%).

The research also highlights the growing value consumers place on understanding their health, with 71% agreeing that having a better understanding of what is happening inside their body helps them feel more in control of their long-term health.

Annika Bizon, VP of Product and Marketing for Samsung UK and Ireland, said: “We’re seeing a fundamental shift in how people think about their health. Rather than waiting for warning signs or problems to emerge, more consumers are looking for ways to better understand their wellbeing every day and make small, positive changes that can have a lasting impact.

“Health is no longer just about responding reactively – it’s increasingly about prevention, awareness and building healthy habits over time. As people become more interested in understanding the connection between their daily routines and long-term wellbeing, access to meaningful, personalised insights is becoming increasingly important.

“Tools like Samsung Health’s Heart Health Score¹ on the Galaxy Watch Series is designed to help users better understand how factors such as sleep, activity and body composition work together to influence long-term heart wellbeing. By bringing these insights together into a simple daily score, we’re helping people make more informed decisions about their lifestyle and feel empowered to take a more proactive approach to their health.”

Sleep has emerged as one of the biggest drivers behind Britain’s preventative health movement, with 42% monitoring how many hours they sleep each night and 34% keeping track of the quality of their rest.

Interest in understanding the connections between different aspects of wellbeing is also growing. Six in 10 say they would be interested in a single score that combines different health factors to help them better understand their heart health.

Helping bring those insights together is Samsung Health’s Heart Health Score, a feature designed to provide users with a clearer understanding of how everyday lifestyle factors may be influencing their cardiovascular wellbeing over time.

Rather than focusing on a single measurement, the Heart Health Score combines key lifestyle indicators including sleep, activity and body composition into one easy-to-understand daily score, helping users spot patterns, build healthier habits and better understand the factors that may be affecting their long-term heart health.

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 personalised results. Feature availability, supported devices, and rollout timing may vary by market, model, and other factors and are subject to change. ︎

During the panel, Hon Pak, Head of the Digital Health Team for the Mobile eXperience (MX) Business at Samsung Electronics, joined four other speakers: David Lee, Head of Samsung Next; Mike McSherry, CEO of Xealth; Alina Su, CEO of Generation Lab; and Michael Dubrovsky, CEO of SiPhox Health. Together, they presented a blueprint for the future of healthcare to an audience of approximately 1,000 global attendees.

Serving as the moderator, David Lee emphasised the critical role of partnership. “The future of health cannot be built by one company alone,” Lee said. “It must be forged through an open ecosystem of collaboration among diverse innovators.”

Building an Open Health Ecosystem

Samsung possesses a diverse portfolio of devices and platforms, spanning from semiconductors to mobile phones, wearables, home appliances and TVs. The company leverages its economies of scale to cultivate a robust, collaborative ecosystem with numerous partners across each of its business sectors.

By integrating Samsung devices with partner solutions within this open ecosystem, Xealth, Generation Lab and SiPhox Health are accelerating the realisation of connected care. This healthcare vision aims to help users lead healthier, more vibrant lives through proactive wellness management powered by Samsung’s connected device ecosystem.

Hon Pak highlighted the scale of Samsung’s reach during the discussion. “Samsung Health supports more than 77 million monthly active users,^[1] and the SmartThings platform connects 460 million users,”^[2] Pak said.

Samsung holds a strong advantage as a trusted brand within the household, the central setting for daily life and wellness. “By connecting our device ecosystem around the home via SmartThings, we can innovate the health experience where it matters most, at a time when health is shifting to the home — a space in which prevention can happen at scale,” Pak added.

To support this transition, Samsung has integrated a wide variety of devices — including home appliances, TVs and compatible third-party devices — into its SmartThings platform. This enables a broad spectrum of services that range from personalised automation routines to family and pet care.

Accelerating Innovation Through Partnerships

The panelists identified Samsung’s established ecosystem and open approach to collaboration as key strengths.

Alina Su of Generation Lab emphasised the value of this partnership. “What has been most exciting is Samsung’s genuine openness and distribution. There’s real scale and technical capability — but there’s also a willingness to collaborate, to co-create, and to move quickly with partners,” Su said. “When you combine that with the devices people already use every day, you can bring innovation to people’s lives far faster than you could independently.”

Michael Dubrovsky of SiPhox Health also explained the benefits of the collaboration. “Samsung brings the device ecosystem already living in people’s homes and on their bodies,” Dubrovsky said. “SiPhox adds the diagnostic layer that has always been missing from that picture. Together, continuous device data and continuous biomarker data create a truly complete health picture that has never existed outside a clinical setting.”

Currently, Generation Lab provides a solution to help users easily check biological age and actively manage aging at home, while SiPhox Health offers a service that enables active health management through hospital-grade blood tests in each household.

Mike McSherry of Xealth shared a vision for providing a seamless, continuous healthcare solution by bridging the gap between clinical care in hospitals and daily wellness management through deep integration with Samsung.

Empowering Open Collaborations and Ensuring Robust Security

In addition to strategic partner collaborations, Samsung has built an open ecosystem for the wider developer and researcher community. Utilising the Samsung Health Software Development Kit (SDK) Suite, they can easily create innovative wellness services leveraging advanced sensor technology and the health platform. This allows Samsung Health users to experience useful new features more quickly.

Protecting these experiences is Samsung Knox, a proprietary defense-grade security solution integrated across various consumer touchpoints, such as mobile devices, home appliances and TVs. With Knox, users can confidently manage their sensitive information within the Samsung ecosystem.

Looking at the next five years of healthcare in the context of the AI era, Pak concluded, “A daily companion that knows who I am, as well as what I need and when, will help me achieve my health goals seamlessly through lifestyle behaviors and connected innovative partner services.”

[1] The number of Samsung Health users is based on the global monthly active users (MAU) as of April 2026.

[2] The number of SmartThings users is based on the global registered users as of May 2026.

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 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 personalised 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^[1] — 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 analyses 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^[1] — 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 analysing 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 personalised 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 organised 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 centralised 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 personalisation with greater precision. As users navigate their day, Antioxidant Index^[2] 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 personalised 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 personalised 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 realised 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 personalised results. Feature availability, supported devices, and rollout timing may vary by market, model, and other factors and are subject to change.

[2] Requires a Galaxy smartphone running Android 11+ and Samsung Health App (V6. 30.2 or above). Samsung Account login required.