What is Samsung Galaxy Watch Active and will it launch ECG feature?
Good news for all the fitness freaks as Samsung is going to launch ECG to its Galaxy Watch Active in year 2020. In a reported news Samsung is expected to launch the second generation of its Galaxy Watch Active smartwatch in both 40 mm and 44 mm sizes and will have the well awaited Electrocardiography app in 2020. The latest report has it that Samsung will introduce three versions of its Galaxy Watch Active 2 – one with LTE and another with only Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. The third one is a separate Under Armour-branded variant. It will have a fancy sports strap and six months of MapMyRun subscription included. The new smartwatches will have stainless steel cases, leather straps and at least four color variants at launch.
The Samsung Galaxy Watch Active
The Samsung Galaxy Watch Active is the spiritual successor to Samsung’s Gear Sport, and a smaller, cheaper version of last year’s flagship Samsung Galaxy Watch with more of a fitness focus on its features.
Like all Samsung smartwatches, the Galaxy Active has a circular AMOLED watchface, which is a touch smaller than the standard Galaxy Watch at 40mm wide, with a 1.1in screen. The beefier wristed among you might prefer the 42mm, or even 46mm, version of the standard Galaxy Watch, but this feels like a good size for its more sporty focus.
The watchface itself is made of metal and comes in four colours, including black, silver, blue and rose gold, with a complementing 20mm silicone strap, which can be switched out for something swisher should you wish. The silicone is comfortable though, and is a great option for working out.
There are two buttons on the right hand side of the watch, which help with navigation. The bottom button works as a home button as well as to power on/off, and the top one as a back button, and can also summon Samsung assistant Bixby with a long hold. The latter is raised ever so slightly more than the other but there’s otherwise no way of telling them apart by touch; the home button has a coloured dot on it though.
Since there is no bezel here, selecting apps and clicking icons is all done by touch, and the Galaxy Watch Active is waterproof to 5m and is IP68 certified, so is perfectly happy to track your water-based activities at the pool as well as those on land.
Powering the Galaxy Watch Active the processor is 1.15GHz Exynos 9110 processor, supported by 750MB RAM and 4GB of storage. It runs on Tizen 4.0, which is slick and easy-to-use – you can tap the face to wake, scroll left for notifications and right for your selection widgets. Loaded with apps for Spotify, Strava, Uber and MapMyRun, it makes the Galaxy Watch Active make all the more sense if you’ve already bought into the Samsung ecosystem, and especially if you have a Samsung phone.
Elsewhere there is GPS for tracking your exercise in a compatible app and a heart-rate monitor on the back of the watch for keeping an eye on your ticker. Samsung recommends you wear the watch about 1-2 inches above your wrist for the best performance here, offering up details on your heart rate while resting and during exercise. It also uses this information to suggest how stressed you are – if it picks up an elevated heart rate without exercise, it will suggest you take a break with a breathing exercise. The battery life of the Galaxy Watch Active will go for around two and a half days before it requires a charge, and it’ll take about two hours to charge from flat. Use GPS for tracking runs and you’ll see this come down a fair amount quicker, though.
The best fitness watch
It can track a total of 39 activities, including yoga and weight lifting, and seven of them it’ll track automatically, such as walking, running, cycling, rowing and swimming. It will keep a count of your steps taken, calories burned, floors climbed, minutes worked out and your heart rate, plus with a Samsung smartphone in tow, you can add in extra lifestyle details, like calories eaten, water drank and caffeine intake.
Like most smartwatches, the Galaxy Watch Active will encourage you to keep moving during the day too, giving you a nudge when you’ve been sat down too long. You can appease its concerns by getting up for a quick walk around, or performing one of its suggested exercises, like torso twists, arm stretches or squats. These are supposed to get automatically tracked so you get the all clear once you’ve completed them. You can set targets to hit, in terms of time active, steps taken and calories burned, and you can keep a quick track of that with one swipe to the left.
Galaxy Watch Active also automatically tracks your sleep, offering up details on how much deep sleep, light sleep and REM you got, though this level of detail is only accessible through the Samsung Health app.
In USA Samsung Galaxy Watch Active is priced at US$199.99 for 40mm watch in Black, Silver, Rose Gold and Green. Click here to buy now.