In-depth health insights packed into a thin wearable frame
The Galaxy Watch 8 continues a trend we’ve seen among Samsung smartwatches for years: It’s loaded with fresh lifestyle and health features, but you’ll still need to charge it every day. On the features side, Google’s AI Gemini comes built-in for voice-controlled convenience, and Samsung’s AI improves on the platform’s already extensive repertoire of activity, exercise, sleep, and stress tracking abilities. The Galaxy Watch 8 can measure antioxidant levels, and its AI coach can help you train for a marathon and get a restful night’s sleep. Physically, it’s thinner and has a brighter screen than the Galaxy Watch 7, but it bumps the starting price by $50 to $349.99. Despite the price increase and its middling battery life, the Galaxy Watch 8 packs enough helpful capabilities to stay ahead of Wear OS competitors and earn our Editors‘ Choice award for Android-compatible smartwatches. Price: $50 More Than the Previous Version
For this review, I tested the $349.99, 40mm, Bluetooth-only Galaxy Watch 8 with a silver-tone frame and a white sport band. A 44mm model is also available for $379.99, and adding LTE to either size costs $50 more. For comparison, last year’s Galaxy Watch 7 was priced from $299.99 at launch.
Despite the price bump, the Galaxy Watch 8 is still competitive with flagships from other companies. The Pixel Watch 3 starts at $349, and the Apple Watch Series 10 is priced from $399.
Both sizes of the Galaxy Watch 8 come in silver or graphite colorways. You can pick from a few different band types when you order on Samsung’s website, including a rubber sport strap or a comfy, lightweight fabric band, and all styles come in multiple colors.
The Watch 8 launches alongside the Galaxy Watch 8 Classic, an update to a line known for its physically rotating bezel that offers old-school appeal and an easy way to browse the interface. The Classic comes in one 46mm size for $499.99, with an LTE version again adding an extra $50 to the sticker. The Watch 8 Classic comes in either a black or white finish, and it shares the same features and sensors as the base model, other than the case size and physical bezel.
Like the Watch 7, the Galaxy Watch 8 is powered by a five-core Exynos W1000 processor with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. To use the Galaxy Watch 8, you’ll need to pair it with an Android phone running Android 12.0 or higher and with more than 1.5GB of memory. The Watch 7 works with any phone running Android 11 or later. Both, however, save some of their advanced features (like AI insights, snoring detection, and gesture controls) for Samsung phones specifically. Features: New AI Assistance
On the Watch 8 series, Samsung’s Galaxy AI can help you train for a marathon or a 5K with a custom-generated plan based on a 12-minute fitness test. The watch will even offer active feedback and coaching to help you stay on pace while you’re on a run.
The upgraded AI can also offer detailed sleep coaching to help you optimize your rest based on your schedule and circadian rhythm. While you sleep, the Watch 8 can measure your vascular load, or the efficiency of the heart in pumping blood throughout the body, to give you deeper insights into your arterial health.
The Watch 8 takes a few nights to establish your vascular load baseline, then compares each subsequent night to that baseline with an eye on consistency instead of any static value. My early results proved Steady and led to rote advice like „Focus on getting plenty of sleep and physical activity and eating a heart-healthy diet.“
There’s also a new antioxidant test, which can offer insight into your dietary health and provide a warning sign for long-term diseases like diabetes. The test is quick and easy—you take the watch off and put your finger directly on the sensor on the back for a few seconds. This feature is unique among wearables, and you’d otherwise have to go to a doctor or a medical lab and get blood drawn to find out your antioxidant levels.
According to the Galaxy Watch 8, my antioxidant levels are low. I ran the test a few times to check for consistency, and I got nearly the same number repeatedly, as well as a different number when I asked a friend to take the test. After the test, the watch encouraged me to include more vegetables in my diet, offering specific suggestions like five pieces of kimchi or a serving of radish greens. Having this information so readily accessible will be handy for those concerned about long-term health conditions.
These software updates come packaged as part of Samsung’s One UI 8 interface, which is one version newer than what’s currently available on the Galaxy Watch 7. While the Watch 7 will likely get access to One UI 8 at some point, the AI features mentioned above will be exclusive to the Galaxy Watch 8, the Galaxy Watch 8 Classic, and last year’s premium Galaxy Watch Ultra ($649.99).
Beneath Samsung’s interface, the Galaxy Watch 8 runs Google’s Wear OS 6, which is again one version newer than the software currently on the Watch 7. Google’s latest smartwatch software allows wrist-based access to Gemini. Google’s voice-activated AI assistant can answer questions, send texts, and interact with Samsung Galaxy Watch apps like Calendar, Clock, Health, and Reminder. Unlike Samsung’s Galaxy AI features, Gemini will be available on older Samsung watches as part of the Wear OS 6 update.
While Galaxy AI and Google Gemini add a lot of usefulness to the Galaxy Watch 8, it also carries forward the features of its predecessor on both the lifestyle and health tracking fronts.
Thanks to Google’s watch software, the Watch 8 offers access to Google Play, complete with every major third-party smartwatch app you could want to download, as well as Google’s staples like Maps and Gmail. You can use the watch to make calls, send texts, and tap for mobile payments as you’d expect. With gesture controls such as a double pinch of your fingers or a twist of your wrist, you can answer calls, take a photo, or dismiss an alarm.
For health tracking, the Galaxy Watch 8 has the same robust sensor suite as the Galaxy Watch 7. Samsung’s BioActive sensor allows for optical heart rate and electrical heart monitoring, and Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) to measure body-composition stats like body fat percentage, fat mass, and skeletal weight, similar to a smart scale. The watch also features an accelerometer, a barometer, a compass, a gyroscope, and a temperature sensor.
Like previous Galaxy Watches, the Watch 8 series can monitor your blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) levels, a feature missing from the latest Apple Watch models. It also offers all of the Galaxy AI health insights that first launched on the Watch 7, including a daily holistic Energy Score that encapsulates all of your tracked fitness and sleep metrics, and personalized wellness tips to help you improve your score.
When it’s time to exercise, the Watch 8 offers workout-tracking modes for a wide range of activities, including biking, hiking, running, swimming, and walking. You can even use it to track circuit training or specific sports, ranging from archery to baseball.
When you wear it to bed at night, the Watch 8 tracks the depth and quality of your slumber, your sleep cycles, and key health metrics, including respiration, skin temperature, and SpO2. If you have a nearby Samsung phone, it’ll even monitor for snoring. In the morning, it gives you an overall Sleep Score based on the duration and restfulness of your shuteye. It can also detect sleep apnea and give you a detailed picture of your metabolism through overnight advanced glycation end products (AGEs) index tracking, features that debuted last year on the Watch 7.
