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Eat my dust
One of the most frequently cited concerns about foldable phones is their durability — people are reluctant to pay anywhere from $999 to $1,799 for one of Samsung’s foldables if there’s a chance that the device could… well… stop folding. And one of the things that can bring devices to their knees quicker than you might think is dust.
That’s a concern for the current foldables from Samsung, which have a resistance rating for water but not for dust. That makes potential Galaxy Z Fold and Galaxy Z Flip buyers wary of dust getting into their would-be phones and wreaking havoc on the movable parts that cause the phone to open and shut.
Given that background, you can understand why my colleague Richard Pirday is excited about a feature tipped for the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6. The new phones are expected to have an IP48 rating. That means the phones will be able to resist dust as well as survive a dunk in water. If true, it’s an improvement that could make people feel a lot more reassured about buying a foldable phone.
Meet the Galaxy Watch’s Bioactive Sensor
The Galaxy Watch 7 is also likely to be on the agenda at Galaxy Unpacked, though Samsung has already given us a look at one of the new features coming to the watch. Samsung previewed the BioActive health sensor that will be a part of its upcoming watches.
Fitness editor James Frew has the BioActive health sensor details, but the TLDR; version is that it’s an embedded in Samsung smartwatches, and this upgraded version boasts optimized sensor placement which should lead to more accurate readings for things like heart rate monitoring. There’s more space on this chip, too, along with improvements to the LEDs used to measure your heart rate.
An Olympic setting
The timing and setting of this Unpacked is a little more interesting than your typical Samsung event. While Samsung tends to hold its product launches in New York or San Francisco, this year’s Unpacked is taking place in Paris. And it’s happening just weeks before the Paris Olympics gets underway.
In fact, Samsung moved up Unpacked from its usual end of July/beginning of August window so that the product launch could take part in Paris ahead of the Summer Olympics. Partly, that’s because Samsung is one of the event’s sponsors. But I’m guessing the types of products Samsung is going to introduce today are also behind the company’s choice in settings. As I wrote this weekend, health and fitness tracking are going to take center stage at Unpacked, to the point where the foldable phones will likely be overshadowed.
By the way, my colleague Kate Kozuch is in Paris attending Unpacked, so look for reports from her later in the day.
Oura gets ready for the Galaxy Ring
If today is the day that brings the launch of the Galaxy Ring — and all signs point to yes — the chief rival to Samsung’s smart ring isn’t taking the news lying down. Right before Galaxy Unpacked, Oura announced plans to bring AI features to its Oura Ring.
The newly unveiled Oura Advisor is a suite of AI-based tools that will analyze data to come up with actionable advice on improving your sleep and well-being. Or as Oura puts it, the Advisor feature available to Oura Ring Gen 3 owners will tap into “”AI to empower [you] to achieve [your] health goals with personalized insights, recommendations, and encouragement.”
Your move, Samsung.
Unless Samsung has a surprise up its sleeve, ne product we won’t be seeing today at Galaxy Unpacked is the Galaxy Z Fold 6 FE. That’s the cheaper version of the Galaxy Z Fold that would strip away some features — forget about S Pen support, for example — in exchange for a lower price.
For a while, there was a steady stream of rumors about a possible low-cost foldable from Samsung showing up at the summer Unpacked event. But in May, reports surfaced that Samsung was tabling work on this particular device. Reportedly, the problem is that Samsung worried about a lack of differentiation from the full-featured Galaxy Z Fold 6.
The FE version of the Fold may not be entirely dead. There’s talk it could show up at the start of next year alongside the Galaxy S25. But that’s an Unpacked event for another time.
Galaxy AI, take two
Samsung’s current foldables — the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5 — already boast some Galaxy AI features, as Samsung brought the capabilities it introduced with the Galaxy S24 launch to recent flagships, including the last Fold and Flip. That means capabilities like Circle to Search and Chat Assist are already a part of the Samsung foldable experience.
Samsung figures to expand Galaxy AI features at Unpacked today. We know this because Samsung told us as much in a blog post last month by Won-Joon Choi, who happens to head the company’s mobile R&D office in its Mobile Experience business. “Our foldables are the most versatile and flexible form factor in Samsung Galaxy and when combined with Galaxy AI, these two complementary technologies will together unlock all new possibilities,” Choi wrote at the time.
What form Galaxy AI features designed for the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6 might take is unclear, but at least one rumor suggests a Fold-specific capability that will tap into generative image editing. According to the rumor, you’ll be able to take any drawings you make on the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and have AI tools spruce them up to look more stylize.
That’s likely just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Galaxy AI features coming to Samsung’s phones, as I think AI needs to be a feature that sets Samsung’s foldables apart from the crowd.
Up close with the Galaxy Ring
It’s way too early to pick an MVP of Unpacked, considering we’re still hours away from the start of the event. But it’s very clear that there’s a lot of attention around the Galaxy Ring, the smart ring that will mark Samsung’s first entry into this new market of health trackers.
Samsung showed off the ring briefly at its January Unpacked event and then gave us a look at the different colors during February’s Mobile World Congress. What Samsung hasn’t told us is a price yet or what the Ring will be able to do.
Leaks have filled in some details on the latter question at least. According to leaks, the ring is supposed to measure both heart rate and stress levels, and it’s widely anticipated to monitor sleep patterns as well, with snore detection features to potentially diagnose sleep apnea. Other potential features include the ability to measure skin temperature and predict menstrual cycles.
Some reports even claim that the Galaxy Ring could include an ECG sensor as well as an additional sensor to measure blood flow. Those rumored capabilities seem more far-fetched to us, however.