Own a Galaxy Watch or the original Galaxy Watch Active? Well, you’re in for a treat. Samsung has just announced that it’s bringing a raft of functionality that was previously only available on its shiny new Galaxy Watch Active 2.
First and foremost, Samsung is giving users a bevy of extra customisation to make their watch more unique. The South Korean tech giant is introducing 24 new sub-dials and complications for the Galaxy Watch and Galaxy Watch Active in addition to its “My Style” feature that lets you set watch backgrounds designed to match the clothes you’re wearing.
The latest update also introduces a number of upgrades to Bixby – Samsung’s chatty helper designed to compete with the likes of Google Assistant and Siri. Samsung claims owners of either the Galaxy Watch or Galaxy Watch Active will now be able to leverage Bixby Voice to start exercise routines, find out the time differences between countries, and much more.
Additionally, Samsung has declared the assistant now supports “British” English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.
Don’t think the upgrades are stopping there though. The Seoul-based company is also bringing a number of aesthetic tweaks to the Galaxy Watch and Galaxy Watch Active. More specifically Samsung is changing the position of icons so they’re more intuitive and more.
Explaining the upgrades, the South Korean firm said: “The new update brings several new UX features to both the Galaxy Watch and Galaxy Watch Active as well, significantly streamlining the user experience. Icons for in-use apps have been moved to the bottom of the watch face, helping users keep track of and quickly access any apps with in-progress tasks, such as outgoing calls.
“Additionally, the current time will now always be displayed on-screen when the stopwatch app is in use or users are on a call, and users can more easily customise the icons in their quick panel thanks to a change in layout. Other UX benefits include a clearer graphic UI, easier user interaction, and new emoji offerings in a range of diverse skin tones.”
Most notably, Samsung has declared it’s bringing the Galaxy Watch Active 2’s Touch Bezel to the original Galaxy Watch Active. As a quick reminder, the Touch Bezel was introduced to Active 2 to compensate for the lack of a physical rotating bezel, like the one found on the original Galaxy Watch.
That means original Active owners will now be able to elegantly glide their finger around the device’s border to scroll between apps and more.
Finally, Samsung is also introducing a number of new capabilities for its Health app. Users of the Galaxy Watch and Galaxy Watch Active will now be able to keep track of fitness goals using its Daily Active feature. The original Galaxy Watch will now support the app’s Low Heart Rate Alert, too.
All the new features described above are rolling out to Samsung fans on a region-by-region basis. That means if the upgrade isn’t currently available for your Galaxy Watch in the UK, you shouldn’t be worried.