Samsung’s latest smartwatch, which is the Galaxy Watch 3, comes with awesome features like ECG and blood pressure monitoring. It’s definitely one of the best smartwatches available for Android users. With that said, there are some older model Galaxy Watches out there, and plenty of users still own those devices.
Fortunately, Samsung hasn’t given up on these smartwatches. Samsung has announced that it will bring certain features from the Galaxy Watch 3 to older devices such as the original Galaxy Watch and Galaxy Watch Active.
What Features Are the Galaxy Watch and Galaxy Watch Active Getting?
First, Samsung adds a smarter notification system to the original Galaxy Watch and Galaxy Watch Active that lets you see images from incoming messages. This feature was already present on the Galaxy Watch Active 2 and Galaxy Watch 3, but now the older models are getting it, too.
Other cool features being added to the watches are AR Emoji and Bitmoji. This will let you be a bit more expressive with your friends and loved ones while chatting with them directly from your watch.
Another feature coming to the Galaxy Watch and Galaxy Watch active is voice guidance for workouts. This is a great feature for making sure your workouts are on track while recording running and biking exercises.
Samsung is adding a scrolling capture feature that’ll let you take full screenshots from the watch instead of capturing just a small section. For sharing your workouts and data, this is a fantastic new feature to have.
Shockingly, older Galaxy Watches didn’t let you listen to voice guidance over Bluetooth headsets, but that’s changing with this update.
Along with the cool new features, Samsung promises your standard performance and stability fixes, which are present in just about every single software update.
Samsung launched the original Galaxy Watch in August 2018, so it’s pushing three years old. It’s good to see Samsung still making substantial updates to a device that old. As the company just announced that it’s now doing four years of security updates for its Galaxy smartphones, this move definitely makes sense.
When Will This Update Launch?
According to the report from TizenHelp, Samsung has started rolling out the update to Galaxy Watch and Galaxy Watch Active owners in the US and South Korea right now. We’re also expecting the update to launch in other regions, though we’re not exactly sure when it’ll hit.
On the original Galaxy Watch, you’re looking for firmware version R810XXU1FUB6. On the Galaxy Watch Active, you want to see version R500XXUF1UB5.