[Update: Gear Sport] Latest Samsung Galaxy Watch update improves alarms and swim tracking

Ben Schoon | Aug 19 2019 - 7:30 am PT

One of the best smartwatches you can buy for an Android phone doesn’t actually run Android, but Tizen. Samsung’s Galaxy Watch has proven a stellar option for many, and this week it’s getting updated with improved swim tracking and more.

Available for both the 42mm and 46mm variants of the Galaxy Watch, this latest update seems to be heading out to users in the United States so far. The update carries the build number R810XXU1CSG4 and weighs in at 15.36MB.

The relatively minor update’s changelog mentions that Samsung has worked on improving the overall system reliability. Samsung also says that this Galaxy Watch update should improve the swim tracking feature for the watch. That feature is a part of S Health, but since it’s been improved via a system update, Samsung has presumably made some changes on a system level for sensors to improve the feature. No further details on the improvements are mentioned.

Finally, this update also disables the automatic syncing of alarms. As SamMobile points out, Samsung’s OneUI update was causing the watch to copy alarms from the smartphone, with those changes overriding whatever was done on the watch including for vibration/sound settings. The full changelog follows.

What’s new

Improved system reliability

Disabled automatic sync for Alarm from paired Smartphone to Watch

Improved tracking for Swim

This same update should also be available to Gear S3 owners.

Update 8/19: The Samsung Gear Sport which launched in 2017 is also now picking up this update. As PiunikaWeb points out, the 12MB update carriers the version number R600XXU1CSF2 / R600OXA1CSF2 and includes the exact same changelog that Galaxy Watch and Gear S3 owners saw in mid-July. The update is rolling out over-the-air, but you can also manually pull the update in the companion app.