Samsung’s wearables team has been hard at work to seize the best smartwatch crown, as this year’s summer Galaxy Unpacked debuted not only the new Galaxy Watch 7 but the all-new Galaxy Watch Ultra. These watches sport a bold (and arguably needed) health feature in sleep apnea detection, alongside a revised way to visualize your energy.
If all this combines the way Samsung’s pitching, the company just leapt out ahead of Apple, which has yet to debut sleep apnea detection in the Apple Watch and won’t debut its workout-aide Training Load feature until WatchOS 11 debuts in the fall. The Galaxy Watch 7 and Watch Ultra, however, will be in stores by the end of this month, following their July 24th release date. Let’s break down what I discovered when I tried on both the Galaxy Watch 7 and Watch Ultra at a private press event.
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 adds sleep apnea detection to Samsung's wearables lineup. Preorder through Amazon, Best Buy or Samsung to get a free additional watch band.
Samsung's beefier Galaxy Watch Ultra is built for greater durability, but it still packs all the same health and workout tracking features that the Galaxy Watch 7 does. Also, preorder from Amazon, Best Buy or Samsung now to get a free additional watch band.
Unique health and wellness tracking
No matter which 2024 Galaxy watch you buy, you’ll see your own energy levels through the lens of Samsung’s new Energy Score system, which rates your restedness on a scale of zero to 100. Of course, you’ll want to do something with this data, so Samsung Health will provide wellness tips on how to reach a higher score.
Both the Galaxy Watch 7 and Galaxy Watch Ultra also feature Samsung’s new FDA-authorized sleep apnea-detection technology. For the uninitiated, sleep apnea is a condition where one’s breathing basically stops and starts throughout the night. And unless your sleep is observed by someone who knows what to look for, you might be putting your heart through a lot of undue wear and tear. Heck, I didn’t really know what a good night’s sleep was until I was diagnosed and started using a CPAP machine to sleep better.
New style and features
Just like its predecessor, the Galaxy Watch 7’s price starts at $300, though its larger model is a hair bigger now, at 44mm (over 43mm). To find the right match for your fits, it’s sold in Cream and Green colors, with sport, fabric and athleisure band options. I got to feel all three but only tried on the sport and athleisure bands, which felt good.
Similarly, the 47mm Galaxy Watch Ultra follows a familiar pattern with a hefty $650 price that’s more than twice as expensive than the Watch 7 and a more robust feature set for those serious about their active lifestyle. The Ultra comes in three colors to suit your style.
Although physically larger than other models, neither the Watch 7 or Watch Ultra felt too slight nor chunky. The default watch faces are also pretty neat, though some were a little too abstract for my data-focused brain.
Samsung also focused on durability with these new products, giving the Watch Ultra the ability to withstand harsh conditions of climbs up to 9,000 meters and deep-sea depths as low as -500 meters (the Apple Watch Ultra 2 matches that operating altitude and water resistance). Both the Galaxy Watch Ultra and Galaxy Watch 7 pack dual GPS (just like the Apple Watch Ultra 2) for increased accuracy on tracking your movement history. Oh, and there’s also a big Quick button for triggering specific user-programmed actions, just like the Apple Watch’s Action button.
And because this is 2024, Samsung sprinkled in some AI features. As such, the Galaxy Watch 7 and Galaxy Watch Ultra will give you the option to reply to text with AI-generated responses, and AI thinking is used for the sleep insights.
The takeaway
This year’s Galaxy Watch offerings seem plain at a distance but profound upon inspection. The Galaxy Watch Ultra may seem tacked on, as if the Samsung team believes in keeping parity with Apple when it comes to specific hardware offerings. By contrast, I’m extremely bullish on the addition of sleep apnea detection becoming more publicly accessible and am excited to see when Apple catches up. For now, congrats to the Samsung team for being first; we can’t wait to test these watches out for ourselves.