Samsung is preparing a wave of new health features for its Galaxy Watch lineup that could sharpen its edge over Apple Watch, according to details surfacing around the Samsung Health app.
The updates center on Samsung Health — the company’s unified fitness and wellness platform — and suggest the next generation of Galaxy Watch devices will push deeper into medical-grade monitoring territory.
What’s Coming
Samsung appears set to expand its sleep tracking capabilities significantly, with new tools designed to Give Users more detailed breakdowns of their rest cycles and recovery data.
The company is also developing more advanced heart health monitoring, building on the existing electrocardiogram (ECG) functionality that detects irregular heart rhythms directly from the wrist.
Blood glucose tracking, long sought by wearable users who manage diabetes or monitor metabolic health, is also reported to be in development for future Galaxy Watch hardware.
That feature alone would mark a major hardware leap, as neither Samsung nor Apple Has yet delivered non-invasive blood glucose monitoring in a consumer smartwatch at scale.
The Samsung Health Platform
Samsung Health serves as the data backbone for all Galaxy Watch devices, aggregating metrics from sleep, workouts, heart rate, and stress into a single interface.
The platform already integrates with third-party apps and health providers, and Samsung has been steadily expanding its partnerships to give users a broader picture of their overall health.
Still, the competitive pressure from Apple Watch remains real. IDC reported that Apple held the leading share of the global smartwatch market in recent quarters, making any feature gap between the two platforms commercially significant.
Samsung vs. Apple
Apple Watch currently offers ECG monitoring, blood oxygen sensing, crash detection, and temperature sensing — a strong suite that Samsung has been working to match and surpass.
Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 7 and Galaxy Watch Ultra, released in 2024, already narrowed that gap with improved sleep apnea detection, a feature the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared for use on compatible devices.
That clearance gave Samsung a meaningful clinical validation advantage, as Apple Watch had not received equivalent FDA clearance for sleep apnea detection at the time of launch.
Even so, Apple’s deep integration with iPhone and its own health research initiatives — including the Apple Heart and Movement Study conducted with Brigham and Women's Hospital — keep its ecosystem highly competitive.
What Users Can Expect
Exact release timing for the new Galaxy Watch features has not been confirmed by Samsung officially.
The Samsung Developer Conference and the company’s annual Unpacked hardware events typically serve as the primary venues where such features get formally announced.
Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 8 series is widely expected later in 2025, and analysts anticipate the new health features will debut alongside that hardware refresh.
Counterpoint Research has noted that health and wellness functionality now ranks among the top three purchase drivers for smartwatch buyers globally, putting both companies under pressure to keep advancing their medical monitoring capabilities.
