Sunday Race Day
In this weekly column, Android Central Wearables Editor Michael Hicks discusses the world of wearables, apps, and fitness tech related to running and health, in his quest to become faster and fitter.
I’ve spent the last year gently criticizing Samsung for not taking fitness as seriously as its competitors. The Unpacked reveals that the Galaxy Watch 7 and Ultra’s heart rate accuracy and dual-band GPS have turned my enthusiasm for the watches up to 11, but I needed to test these improvements for myself. Two days of running later, I’m extremely optimistic!
My Galaxy Watch Ultra review model arrived Thursday afternoon in 102°F weather, so my testing time was limited to the last two muggy mornings (I’m writing this on Saturday). I’ll do more in-depth testing in about 1.5 weeks, but I wanted to hurry up for anyone thinking about pre-ordering a Watch 7 or Ultra.
There are four main improvements over the Watch 6 compared to the Galaxy Watch 7 and Ultra: a faster Exynos, double the storage, triple the LEDs in the lower health sensors, and dual-band GPS. The first two are welcome but expected for an annual upgrade, while the value of the latter two is somewhat subjective. Are the Watch 6’s old HR and GPS data good enough that you can wait to upgrade, or are Wear OS athletes doing just that? need the upgrade ?
My fitness test on the Galaxy Watch Ultra
To test their accuracy, I ran with the Galaxy Watch Ultra on my left wrist, the Garmin Forerunner 965 on my right wrist, and the COROS heart rate monitor on my arm synced to the Garmin for more accurate HR results.
The Garmin watch was set to SatIQ mode, which starts with GPS only to save battery life, but switches to dual-band mode if the signal encounters a blockage. In theory, the Galaxy Watch Ultra will remain in dual-band mode by default, which would be more reliable.
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My first 5K run ended with both Garmin and Samsung measuring 3.11 miles with an average heart rate of 159 bpm. It was a good start, although the graph above shows a few heart rate deviations where Samsung overestimated or underestimated my efforts, which compensated. The GPS map shows that Garmin (blue) stayed more on my path, while Samsung (orange) drifted more into the street throughout the loop.
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My second five-mile run ended with the Galaxy Watch Ultra measuring 5.04 miles and an average of 145 bpm. The Garmin Forerunner 965 measured 5.01 miles and the COROS HRM measured 146 bpm.
In this test, the Galaxy Watch Ultra’s dual-band GPS map performed better than Garmin’s SatIQ map. On a round-trip run, Samsung more consistently stuck to the running course while Garmin strayed off course. And at one point when I was running down the street past construction, Samsung did a better job of capturing the moment when I stopped and turned to watch cars go by.
As for heart rate, Samsung mostly matched the peaks and valleys of the heart rate monitor, but lagged slightly when it came to rapid changes. That’s pretty consistent for wrist-based optical heart rate data, so Samsung is in good company. Aside from a few hiccups, the Ultra stayed close in terms of accuracy.
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Finally, I did a quick one-mile run on lane 2 of a track to test the Galaxy Watch Ultra’s accuracy at max effort. In this case, Samsung measured 1,670m, when the exact distance was 1,640m; the Ultra’s average of 171bpm was 6bpm lower than the COROS HRM.
You’ll notice the heart rate issues right away at the start of my run. I attribute this to taking my watch off to take pre-race photos and not tightening it enough; it wobbled when I pumped my arms until I tightened it during the first lap, and the results improved (although not immediately). Even so, the Galaxy Watch Ultra’s results were off by about 5-8 bpm at various points before getting back on track completely during the final lap.
The GPS map was a bit crazy, but I haven’t found it yet any of them a fitness watch that perfectly matches my trajectory during a track race, so I wouldn’t get too much benefit from it.
Overall, my GPS results were significantly better than what I got in last year’s Galaxy Watch 6 fitness test; my heart rate results were better, but I want to do more anaerobic workouts to see if the trail running issues were a fluke.
As an aside, the Samsung’s step count was a bit wonky. It was nearly accurate when I walked 1,000 steps during the count, but I suspect it misses some steps when you run. My cadence (steps per minute) was off by a few spm on each run, and my daily step count on the Ultra was about 100 steps less than the Forerunner 965 for a few thousand steps. Garmin watches have won several of my step counting tests, so I trust its data more here.
Thoughts on training with the Galaxy Watch Ultra
The Galaxy Watch Ultra and Watch 7 feature the same dual-band GPS and redesigned HR LEDs, so you should get better fitness results than the last-gen Galaxy Watches no matter which one you choose.
Focusing specifically on the Galaxy Watch Ultra, I wrote earlier this week that I was disappointed that the Ultra had an inactive crown. I love having a dedicated button to pause or restart workouts, but I get annoyed when I have to swipe multiple times to change screens, even when I’m trying to wipe sweat off my fingers. It’s not a major issue, but I hope Samsung makes it a proper crown for future Ultras.
Samsung sent me the bulkier Ocean band, while I would have preferred the nylon Trail band to shed some weight and make the Ultra fit more snugly on my wrist. My arm has gotten used to heavy fitness watches over the years, so I didn’t find the Galaxy Watch Ultra too awkward to wear; that said, people with smaller wrists will want to try one on first and see if they’re okay with it.
I love the jump to 3,000 nits of brightness on the display. Like on my Apple Watch Ultra 2, colors remain vibrant and text readable in sunny conditions.
Samsung told us the Galaxy Watch Ultra could last 16 hours in typical conditions with full GPS. I started my run with the Ultra fully charged and finished at 85% after two hours of running and walking with auto-tracking combined. That would theoretically give the Ultra 13 hours, which isn’t far off Samsung’s claim.
If nothing changes in future testing, the Galaxy Watch Ultra (or the more affordable Galaxy Watch 7) will easily join the best fitness watches on the market. Samsung still has a way to go on the software side (I’d like to see Training Load or Recommended Workouts in future Wear OS updates), but in terms of hardware, it’s caught up with the competition.
Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra Watch