Galaxy Watch Active 2 comes with ECG and touch sensitive bezel

Samsung has announced today Galaxy Watch Active 2. The timepiece was subject to numerous leaks during the past few weeks so most of the specs were known prior to the official reveal.

Essential reading: Top fitness trackers and health gadgets

Owners of the first generation device might not be too happy to learn of the news, considering the original watch was announced less than six months ago. Watch Active 2 comes with a fresh new look, design and size options, ECG sensors, an LTE variant and more.

Here’s everything you need to know.

Design

As can be seen from the images, Samsung is slightly straying from the design formula of the original. No, the trademark bezel is not making a return. However, you are able to navigate the watch via the black border that surrounds the screen and functions as a touch sensitive strip. That’s alongside the touchscreen and physical buttons, of course.

The bezel was dropped for the first version of the watch, but it seems Samsung came up with an even better solution. You can check out how this functions in the video below.

Other design tweaks include a round home/power button with a red circle around it, instead of rectangular one. The back of the watch has also received a revamp, and has a circular rim around the heart rate sensor.

More interestingly, Samsung has added size choices this time around. The original Galaxy Watch Active only come in a 40mm variant. The second generation comes in an additional 44mm option.

The smaller version of the watch has a 1.2-inch S-AMOLED display (360 x 360 pixels resolution) with Gorilla Glass DX+, whereas the larger version sports a 1.4-inch display. Both iterations comes with a pure black screen and a border you’ll hardly notice.

You can choose between a stainless steel (Bluetooth version) or lightweight aluminum design (LTE models), and straps galore. Whats more, Samsung is making it much easier to customise watch faces. Snap a picture of your outfit and the thing will put together a watch face to match.

Features

There’s now an LTE variant in addition to the standard Bluetooth version. The first comes packing a 340 mAh battery, the second a 237 mAh one. You can expect to get more than a day on the new watches with “normal use”, which is not really something to write home about.

The leaks indicated that the watch would come with an ECG monitor and possibly fall detection. This, however, is coming at a later stage. So the functionality is built in, but has not been enabled yet.

Samsung says the full eight photodiodes on the rear side improve on the heart rate monitoring capability. The better precision will be coupled with alerts when their heart beat goes above or below normal levels.

Other than that, there’s doesn’t seem to be too much that is new. Swimming has been added to the list of exercises automatically tracked. This brings the total up to seven (walking, running, cycling, rowing, eliptical training, “other workout”). For other types of workouts you will need to choose the manual option. For running, there’s a coach function which gives you actionable advice in real time.

If you take a closer look at the images, you’ll spot a tiny hole between the two physical buttons. This is to facilitate a microphone hole. You can use this to speak a language you want to translate and access the smart assistant.

The rest is pretty standard stuff and includes the usual 24/7 activity and stress tracking. You also get breathing exercises to help you chill. Like the previous generation, there’s NFC for mobile payments, as well as GPS for tracking workouts without a phone.

Specs

Availability

Samsung is still selling both generations models with different prices. Expect Watch Active 2 to start at $279 in the United States. Pre-orders are open on Samsung’s website with shipments set to head out on September 27th. Those who pre-order will get a complimentary Wireless Charger Portable Battery.

Like this article? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter and never miss out!