Samsung Revamps Health App Brings Vitals and Heart Health Score Ahead of Galaxy Watch 9 Launch

Samsung is expected to launch the Galaxy Watch 9 series next month. Ahead of it, the South Korean giant has announced a major update to Samsung Health. One of the highlights of the update is a new Vitals feature that is designed to monitor overnight biometric signals such as heart rate, heart rate variability, respiratory rate, skin temperature, and blood oxygen levels. It also brings several other features like Heart Health Score, Daily Cardio Load, and Fitness Index. The update offers improvements to the interface and existing tools, such as the Antioxidant Index and AGEs Index.

Samsung Health Gains New Features and Health Tracking Tools

In a Newsroom post on Thursday, Samsung has announced a major update to its Samsung Health app, introducing a suite of features that will debut in the next-generation Galaxy Watch. The update will begin rolling out on June 8.

The update includes a fresh Vitals feature to analyse five overnight bio-signals — heart rate, heart rate variability, respiratory rate, skin temperature and blood oxygen against their true resting baseline. It sends notifications when changes are detected.

The update features a new Heart Health Score replacing the Vascular Load. It monitors sleep, stress, and activity and combines them with body composition data to provide a unified score that identifies the habits affecting users' long-term well-being.

Samsung has also added a new Daily Cardio Load feature to the Health app that tracks accumulated cardiovascular strain during aerobic exercise. It suggests optimal training targets and rest times by calculating daily load and maximum training capacity of wearers to avoid overtraining and make progress toward their fitness goals.

Another new feature is Fitness Index to analyse metrics like heart rate, VO2 max and daily steps against users' peers. It is designed to deliver tailored content and personalised goals for users.

With the latest refresh, Samsung Health will show a new layout with five main categories, including Sleep, Activity, Nutrition, Mindfulness, and Vitals. The daily wellness tips and AI-powered Energy Score will be shown in the home screen.

The update also brings improvements to existing features. The Antioxidant Index now provides more insights into the nutritional intake of wearers. The AGEs index has been enhanced to work in the background to capture automatic overnight measurements. Further, there is a new Hearing Health feature that integrates across the Galaxy ecosystem to monitor surrounding ambient noise through Galaxy Watch. It delivers personalised analytics to help protect the user's ears.

New Galaxy Watch features have been revealed ahead of the launch of the next-generation Galaxy Watch series. The Galaxy Watch 9 and Watch 9 Classic are rumoured to be launched at a Galaxy Unpacked event on July 22.