After a small delay, Samsung has finally launched its One UI 5 Watch beta, giving those in the United States and South Korea, a chance to play around with the company's upcoming update for its popular Galaxy wearables. The beta is currently available for the Galaxy Watch 4, Galaxy Watch 4 Classic, Galaxy Watch 5, and Galaxy Watch 5 Pro.
The news was first reported by the team at SamMobile, and gaining entry into the beta will work similarly to Samsung's betas for its Galaxy smartphones. If you're interested, download the Samsung Members app, and click on the banner for the One UI 5 Watch Beta Program, which should be located at the top of the homepage as soon as you open the app.
As mentioned previously, the beta is currently only available to those in the United States and South Korea. So make sure you're located in one of those countries to gain access to the beta program. Also, the beta is being rolled out in phases, so if you don't see it as soon as you open the app, just check back every few days. Before installing the beta, make sure that your watch and smartphone are charged and that you have plenty of room, as the One UI Watch 5 beta is quite large, coming in at over 1.5GB.
As far as what you can expect, Samsung has previously shared that it plans to focus on three key areas: health, wellness, and safety. With the update, users will get an enhanced experience with better tools for fitness, like Personalized Heart Rate Zone, a feature that will provide real-time analysis during runs. Furthermore, the feature will also provide the ability to create customized interval training programs with five intensity levels that include: warm-up, fat burn, cardio, hard-training, and maximum effort.
In addition, Galaxy Watch Pro owners will be able to maximize GPX files for route workouts, gaining access to hiking and cycling. Watch Pro owners will also be able to download GPX files using the Samsung Health app, making the process seamless and convenient. Samsung will also include a new Sleep Insight UI, which will give users more information about their sleep. There will also be new watch faces that will show a sleep score, along with details like sleep phases, snoring hours, and blood oxygen levels.
When it comes to safety features, you can never have enough, and Samsung understands this, so with the One UI Watch 5 beta, the company is bolstering its current SOS features by adding location relay, medical information, and Fall Detection being active by default depending on the user's age. As you can tell, Samsung plans to bring a lot of changes. While the beta does give us a lot to look forward to, there's probably going to be more unveiled during its next Galaxy Unpacked event, which is set to take place in late July.