The Galaxy Watch 7 and Watch Ultra are the first smartwatches with Wear OS 5

The cat’s out of the bag: Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 7 and Galaxy Watch Ultra are now official. Samsung unveiled its new wearables alongside the new foldables at the Galaxy Unpacked today and the new smartwatches bring some serious upgrades to the table. They’re powered by the Exynos W1000 chipset, offering up to 30% better performance and battery life than the previous generation. But there’s something unique about these smartwatches, and it’s the OS they run on — Wear OS 5.

Samsung, in its official press release, notes that the Galaxy Watch 7 and Galaxy Watch Ultra run on “Wear OS Powered by Samsung,” based on the latest Wear OS 5. Google officially unveiled Wear OS 5 just two months ago at the I/O 2024 conference, and the new Galaxy watches are the first to feature the new software out of the box.

Wear OS 5 brings battery and performance improvements

So, what does Wear OS 5 bring to the table? At first glance, you might not notice many differences since the UI remains mostly the same, but there are many changes under the hood. Google says it has optimized Wear OS 5 to deliver major battery and performance improvements, up to 30%. New health features have been added, and apps can access more data types, such as stride length, and there are other advanced health monitoring features, such as heart rate tracking, sleep monitoring, and more available.

It is, however, worth noting that Wear OS 5 is debuting on the new Samsung Galaxy Watches and likely won’t be available on other smartwatches, including Google’s own Pixel Watch lineup, until next month when Google is rumored to unveil the Pixel Watch 3. Wear OS 4 also made its debut with the Galaxy Watch 6 series last year and didn’t reach other smartwatches until the Pixel Watch 2’s release. It remains to be seen when Wear OS 5 will come to Samsung’s older smartwatches.

For now, the only way to experience Wear OS 5 is by purchasing the new Galaxy Watch 7 or Galaxy Watch Ultra. The Galaxy Watch 7 starts at $300, and the Galaxy Watch Ultra starts at $650 in the US, with the company already taking pre-orders for both. If you pre-order before July 24, Samsung will include an additional watch band for free, and you can also benefit from excellent trade-in offers right now.

• Samsung Galaxy Watch 7

  Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 may not look like a major upgrade on the outside, but it features the much-improved internal specs like the new 3nm Exynos W1000 processor for better battery life and performance. It is also among the first smartwatches to run on Wear OS 5 out of the box.

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  Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra

  The Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra is the brand’s first ‘Ultra’ generation smartwatch. Starting at $650, it is Samsung’s most premium wearable yet. It is made for outdoor activity enthusiasts, featuring durable materials, long battery life, the same capable Exynos W1000 processor, and Wear OS 5 capability.