Just a couple of weeks before Samsung is slated to announce the successor, the Galaxy Watch Active has received a huge update. It weighs in at about 74MB in size, and brings a ton of changes, and many bug fixes as well.
According to the changelog for the Galaxy Watch Active, the update brings new and improved Bixby. Which, as Samsung says, will “help you get tasks done more easily.” Samsung Health is also getting some changes, with Swimming being a new addition to the auto-detecting exercises. It is also adding a low alert for your heart rate, as well as the Breath Guide graphics being improved.
The App Tray UI has been improved, making it easier and more intuitive to search for the apps that you are looking for. Finally, Samsung has updated the Goodnight Mode UI. Which is going to bring a dedicated view while the Goodnight Mode is turned on. And of course, there are many bugs being fixed here, and automated sync of alarms from your phone to your watch has also been disabled. This is something we saw with the Galaxy Watch’s update last week.
This is a pretty big update for the Galaxy Watch Active, while it might not seem like it, Samsung has improved things across the board with this one. And it’s coming just a couple of weeks before Samsung announces the Galaxy Watch Active2.
It’s also good to see that Bixby is improving. As much as we (reviewers and media) like to hate on Bixby, many Samsung users actually use it quite a bit to do simply things like playing music, adjusting the volume, opening the calendar and so forth. And to see that functionality make its way over to the watch, it’s a good thing to see. Samsung isn’t giving up on Bixby, so to see it continue to improve is really a nice thing.
The update should be rolling out to the Galaxy Watch Active now. To check for your update, simply jump into the Galaxy Wearable app on your smartphone. Scroll down to the bottom of the settings page (this is going to be in the tab on the left) and go to “About Watch”. Then tap on “Update Watch Software” and finally tap on “Update Now”. From there, it’ll search to find your update. If it is found, it will show you the changelog and ask if you want to download it now. Tap on Download and then Install once it’s ready to install. It shouldn’t take long (it took about 10 minutes on my device) to install.
The Galaxy Watch Active continues to get better and better, and it’s something we can all appreciate. Most companies will stop updating their wearables after it has been out for a few months, or even as the next version is about to launch. But Samsung has shown its customers, that it doesn’t do that. It’s still updating the Gear S3 for heaven’s sake. So you never need to worry about Samsung giving up on these many wearables that it puts out.