Samsung has announced a new fitness upgrade that sees it bringing much-needed fitness and wellness features to the Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic – two of the best smartwatches on the market in our tests.
The headline upgrades focus heavily around fitness and wellness: users will now get a 30-day trial of the Chris Hemsworth-helmed Centr training platform (which is a pretty decent upgrade, as it’s listed as one of our best home workout apps), as well as improved sleep insights.
The tie-in with Centr isn’t just limited to the trial of the program, but also uses the body composition insights from the service to give better understanding of a user’s overall health.
Users of the Watch 4 range will need to wear the device for 5 weekday nights and 2 weekend nights to get the new insights, which will (in association with two surveys from the user) will give coaching and article recommendations to help users gain more restful slumber.
For some reason, Samsung will also ascribe users a ‘sleep animal’ to show what kind of sleeper they are, although it’s unclear if this is for anything other than odd cuteness.
Witness the fitness (upgrade)
The other big upgrade is to the fitness app, where users will be able to set intervals for their training sessions on bike or foot, It’s rather rudimentary, but a key feature of improved fitness that many will have previously downloaded a separate app to achieve.
That’s joined by the ability – to be available ‘in the coming months’ – for users to choose between Google Assistant or Bixby as the voice assistant on the Watch 4 – that’s hardly going to be a difficult choice, we’d imagine.
Samsung is furthering its WearOS relationship with Google by allowing YouTube Music users to stream music over Wi-Fi or LTE without needing the phone nearby. However, given that Spotify support allows for downloading of tracks for offline use, this doesn’t sound as impressive.
Samsung is also unveiling a greater range of watch faces and straps for the Watch 4 and Watch 4 classic, which will be available late February.
The new software will be available to download from February 9, the same day that the Samsung Galaxy S22 is set to launch – it’s likely this will be referenced during the presentation (and don’t forget – we’ve got all the information on how to watch the Galaxy S22 live stream right here).