Samsung unveils new ring and watches in its biggest product launch of the year as it takes on Apple
The Korean electronics giant is harnessing AI to shake up the wearables market, releasing a new ring and watches with sensors so powerful they can potentially detect diabetes.
Samsung has unveiled its much-hyped Galaxy Ring — which boasts artificial intelligence-powered features which can detect a range of conditions, from sleep apnoea to potentially diabetes — and a new rugged smartwatch as it seeks to shake up the health tracking device market and challenge Apple.
The Korean electronics giant has become one of the first companies to release a health monitoring device which can be worn on a finger, overcoming the discomfort many feel wearing chunky watches to bed.
It showcased the Galaxy Ring and Galaxy Watch Ultra at its Unpacked event in Paris on Wednesday night — its biggest product launch of year — where it also unveiled new models of its earbuds, flip and foldable phones
The Galaxy Ring will weigh 2.3 to 3 grams, depending on the model, and be available in titanium black, silver or gold with nine sizing options and up to seven days’ battery life.
It is designed to help users better understand their sleep patterns, which can be linked to a broad range of health disorders, by monitoring sleep quality, analysing snoring, and measuring heart and respiratory rates.
But it’s not just designed for the bedroom. Like many wearables, the Galaxy Ring will also have auto workout detection, allowing people to track a variety of activities, and send users daily fitness reminders such as inactivity alerts. It can also track menstrual cycles and sync with Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones to take pictures or dismiss alarms via a double pinch gesture.
It will be available in select markets from July 31, but Australians will have to wait before they get their hands on the Galaxy Ring — a launch date and pricing is yet to be determined.
Samsung Australia director of mobile experience Eric Chou said the company was harnessing artificial intelligence — which it unveiled with its Galaxy S24 range in January — to make its health tracking devices more powerful.
As well as being able to detect sleep apnoea, he said Samsung’s wearables could also diagnose diabetes, but the release of this functionality was subject to regulatory approval.
“It is important to also just recognise that we are really taking Galaxy AI to lean into the health angle,” Mr Chou said.
“Galaxy AI is really more about aggregating a lot of those content and health data so that it is able to monitor your sleep, exercise, your blood pressure, for example, and then be able to provide meaningful recommendations for the user so that it improves the overall wellness, as opposed to just saying that, ‘you’ve just taken 6000 steps today, well done’. That sort of doesn’t tell you a lot. So it’s really taking that intelligence to the next level.
“Galaxy Ring, obviously, will then play a very important part to that once it is something that’s worn on a more regular basis — into sleep as an example. It’s then going to capture an even more complete set of health data.”
Samsung is the world’s second-biggest smartwatch maker behind Apple, which has also been focusing more on health tracking as a way to further bolster profits.
The smartwatch market alone, excluding other wearables, is forecast to grow 6.8 per cent annually to be worth $US62.5 bn by 2028, according to Statista.
Apple has built a strong customer base. Within four years of launching its first smartwatch in 2015, it outsold the entire Swiss watch industry. It shipped 31 million Apple Watch units worldwide in 2019, compared with the Swiss watch industry’s 21 million, according to a report from Strategy Analytics. That’s a margin of 10 million units: half the total sales of the Swiss watch industry.
Samsung is looking to carve out more of this market share by releasing its own high-end version to take on Apple’s titanium-cased Watch Ultra. Samsung has also used the Ultra name in its branding, hoping to appeal to the same extreme sport enthusiasts Watch Ultra does.
It will have a 47mm case in three colours, cost $1299 — $100 less than the Apple Watch Ultra 2 — and will be available in Australia from July 31. It will match the Apple Watch Ultra 2, with 3000 nits of maximum brightness.
Samsung has been steadily gaining more market share across its phones, and reports 29 per cent of people who bought its flagship S24 had made the switch from other brands.
According to IDC, Samsung’s market share grew 3 per cent in units and 2.4 per cent in value in the first quarter of 2024. Its share now totals 38.1 per cent (units) and 37.7 per cent (value).
In Paris, Samsung also released its more consumer-focused Galaxy Watch7, which has features including electrocardiogram blood pressure monitoring. It will be priced from $549 for the 40mm version, and feature a processor Samsung says is three times faster, with a 30 per cent increase in power efficiency.
“Every iteration is more just about having more accurate sensors,” Mr Chou said.
“The design of the Galaxy Watch Ultra, for example, has now been taken to a new level, providing you with a lot more durability, longer battery, but at the same time, allowing for the AI features that we have spoken about.”
AI also features strongly across Samsung’s new Galaxy 7 Fold6 and Flip6 phones as well as its new Buds3 earphones, which can translate 16 languages and 23 dialects, including “Australian English”.
“We’ve actually tried that out and it does sound pretty Aussie,” Mr Chou said.
“You can actually choose the interpreter mode on the mobile device to be continuous listening. So let’s just say that you go on a guided tour in a different language, having the Buds in your ear essentially just means that you’re constantly just being fed what’s just being discussed or what’s being shared by the other tool guide, but in the language of your choice, constantly in your ear.”
While most AI is on device, Samsung tapped into Google’s Gemini model to allow users to access its generative capabilities. Mr Chou said access to Gemini could be disabled in settings, so users could control how much information they shared on the cloud.
“Everything at the moment is under the Galaxy AI umbrella, so when the user’s not prompted that that is going through Google or Samsung,” he said.
“Of course, for example, chat assist, where it allows for sentences to be reworded, or translation or interpreter, where it translates different languages, most of these features have everything that’s directly on board, and that is all through the Samsung large language model as opposed to having the data needing to go through the internet.”
Mr Chou said it wasn’t just software which had been upgraded but also the hardware, which — in the case of the Flip and Fold phones — were more durable with improved hinges. The phone will also come with seven years worth of security updates.
The Galaxy Z Flip6 will be priced from $1799, while the Z Fold6 will start at $2749. The Galaxy Buds3 and Buds3 Pro will cost $299 and $399 respectively.
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