Samsung’s One UI 5 Watch brings improved sleep and fitness tracking, more direct SOS

Since the release of the Galaxy Watch 4, Samsung has been making serious improvements to its version of Wear OS. With the latest update, One UI 5 Watch, Samsung is bringing improved sleep tracking, personalized fitness features, and a more direct line to emergency services when using SOS.

Samsung’s existing fitness regime is nothing to laugh at. The Galaxy Watch 4 and 5 both make use of top-of-the-line sensors, and with it, the fitness kits that come with each device do well to help users keep an eye on what their body is doing. Of course, things could always improve.

One UI 5 Watch is the newest OS built for the Galaxy Watch 4, 5, and its upcoming series of wearables, likely named the Galaxy Watch 6. It first improves on sleep tracking, with a more holistic approach taken than previously. One UI Watch 5 will focus more on sleep patterns and building healthy sleep habits. This brings new metrics that users can dive into, like snore hours, blood oxygen levels, and sleep phases.

This system sounds an awful lot like the approach Fitbit uses with its sleep tracking on the Pixel Watch and other devices. If that’s the case, One UI 5 Watch is something to look forward to even if that was the only improvement. Fortunately, though, it isn’t.

Samsung is adding another familiar feature to Galaxy Watches with personalized heart rate zones to better fit each user individually. Each person can set custom goals once they know where they stand. According to Samsung’s release, it sounds like these heart rate zones will be accessible when using the Galaxy Watch’s running modes. It’s a gray area as to if zones will be accessible through any of the other many exercises the Galaxy Watch has on board.

Perhaps the best new feature headlining One UI Watch 5 is the improved emergency SOS calling. In previous versions, users would find that turning on SOS called specified emergency contacts. We took some issue with this, as other devices place a call directly to emergency services, therefore making the feature a little more time-efficient in a real emergency. Of course, there was a workaround, but it didn’t feel complete.

Now, Galaxy Watch users will be able to set emergency SOS to directly contact emergency services and send vital location data and medical info listed on their devices. With that, fall detection will be available as well to fill out that emergency portfolio.

With Samsung soon to release a new Galaxy Watch, One UI 5 Watch will be preloaded in full and ready to go on those devices. As for previous models, the Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 5 are both eligible for the beta program through the Samsung Members app.