Months after Samsung introduced its suite of Galaxy AI features for smartphones, the company is showing how it plans to bring more AI to its smartwatches.
The company on Wednesday announced a collection of new AI-powered health features for its Galaxy Watch lineup, which it says will arrive on the company's new watches through its One UI 6 Watch software later this year. A limited number of Galaxy Watches will also get the beta version in June.
Samsung's Galaxy AI features for the Galaxy Watch will include a new Energy Score for making more sense of your health readings, in addition to new running and sleep metrics. Samsung is one of many tech companies looking to integrate AI into its products more deeply following the success of ChatGPT in late 2022. It's a sign that like Google and Microsoft, Samsung is also making an effort to elevate the role of AI in its most important products.
Read more: Smart Rings Are Picking Up Where Fitness Trackers Left Off
Although the company is branding these new features as Galaxy AI, they feel similar to health features that are already present on other health gadgets. Take Energy Score as an example, which combines various sleep metrics like sleep time, consistency and heart rate with activity and heart rate variability to provide a score indicating your current state. That sounds a lot like Oura's Readiness Score and Fitbit's Daily Readiness Score, both of which existed long before the AI craze began.
It also sounds similar to the My Vitality Score feature that Samsung teased at its January Unpacked event and Mobile World Congress in February, where it announced its upcoming Galaxy Ring. It's unclear if Energy Score is a rebranding of My Vitality Score or a new feature entirely.
Regardless, it should bring the Galaxy Watch up to par with these other trackers when it comes to providing holistic health takeaways, which could give it a key advantage over the Apple Watch, as I've written in the past. Samsung also doesn't charge a subscription for its health service as Oura and Google do, which could also give it an edge. Although, the fine print for Samsung's Galaxy S24 product page did hint that the company may charge for Galaxy AI in the future.
The update will also include Wellness Tips, which serves up insights and guidance based on your specific health goals. This, too, sounds like the Booster Card feature Samsung announced earlier this year.
Samsung's sleep algorithm is also getting an update that will allow it to surface additional metrics such as movement during sleep, sleeping heart rate, sleep latency and respiratory rate.
Running is also an area of focus for this update, with new tools for monitoring aerobic and anaerobic threshold heart rate zones, a measurement that involves the intensity of your workout and is usually associated with endurance training, as sports enthusiast publication Outside explains.
Cyclists will be able to get readings for functional threshold power, or a rider's maximum sustainable power according to Strava. The Apple Watch gained similar functionality for cyclists in WatchOS 10 when connected to a power meter.
With the update, you'll also be able to build your own customized workout routine consisting of multiple exercises and compare current and past performance on the same route with the new Race feature.
Won-Joon Choi, executive vice president and head of the research and development office for Samsung's mobile experience business, said the company would tailor its AI features for specific products when speaking with CNET in January. This update could provide a glimpse into how Samsung's AI focus translates to wearables, although it also feels consistent with the health-oriented direction the company had been pursuing long before launching Galaxy AI.
The company also teased that this is just "a small taste" of the company's plans, which we're expecting to hear more about during its next Unpacked event rumored for July. Samsung is also expected to reveal more details about the Galaxy Ring, its new health tracking device, at that event, as blog SamMobile has reported.
Samsung will surely have more competition in the weeks and months to come. Apple is expected to introduce its next Apple Watch software update at its Worldwide Developers Conference on June 10. Google's Fitbit, meanwhile, will roll out new generative AI features as part of its Fitbit Labs program this year.