It looks like Samsung’s recently-announced plan to roll out new AI features to Galaxy watches will be happening much sooner rather than later.
Spotted by theonecid on Twitter/X (via SamMobile), U.S. moderators on Samsung’s Community Forums have started updating One UI 6 Watch Beta posts, including its community guidelines, terms and conditions, FAQs and privacy policy. Samsung said in its One UI 6 announcement that Beta testers would get the OS in June and these forum changes suggest that the update is imminent.
If you’re a U.S.-based user of the Galaxy Watch 4, Watch 4 Classic, Watch 5, Watch 5 Pro, Watch 6 and Watch 6 Classic—keep an eye out out for the update. It’s worth noting that you have to be a registered Beta user to get the update, which could also be region-locked.
To get the Beta, users have to download the Samsung Members app, sign in with their account, and select the “registration for One UI Beta program” option. Then hold tight for software update, or hit the follow button at the bottom of this story for One UI 6 release news.
One UI 6 for the Galaxy Watch is the first major update in a while for Samsung’s wearables, which the company says will bring AI skills to your wristwear. The crux of the update is around enhanced recommendations, based on personalized health data, with particular benefits for those who like to track their sleep, heart rate, and workouts.
The new Energy Score feature, for example, measures your daily energy levels by monitoring sleep statistics, activity and heart rate variation. Workout Routines will streamline exercise planning, while the enhanced sleep tracking will take deeper measurements of how well-rested you are from a night of slumber. Check my story on the update here for more details.
Samsung’s AI-powered updates, via One UI 6.1, for Galaxy phones have gone down well. But wearables are a different game entirely because they have much smaller batteries. Redditors have already expressed concerns about how AI tools could put pressure on already delicate Galaxy Watch battery life. We will have to see how Samsung balances the new features with existing hardware. This is a beta, after all, and not a release for the general public. It’s an opportunity for Samsung to see how these features operate in the real world, including how they impact performance and battery life, so the experience may not be polished.