The fact that the Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 is coming is not exactly a secret. But now, thanks to research from XDA Developers, we know exactly what features to expect from the new generation, more than a week before its official launch.
The source is official: Samsung launched the Galaxy Watch 3 Plugin app, which initially didn’t seem to reveal too much. But thanks to Max Weinbach’s APK decompilation efforts, some upcoming secrets are now out of the bag.
First off, the Galaxy Watch 3 will support hand gestures. According to Samsung, the watch’s sensors are sensitive enough to reliably detect hand movements, and this means that you can answer calls by clenching and opening your fist. Conversely, if you do not want to take a call, you can shake your hand and it will be ignored.
There’s also fall detection, a feature that rival Apple Watch introduced with the fourth generation. It’s actually not that different from the current SOS mode: if it falls, the smart watch will chime for 60 seconds, and if it doesn’t respond, it will send a text message with your location to your emergency contacts, along with a sound recording of five seconds.
Finally, and in less dramatic fashion, Weinbach discovered that Samsung is changing the way that users can take screenshots of the watch. To be fair, the above method, pressing a button while sliding to the left, was a bit awkward, but it’s hard to imagine taking screenshots of the Galaxy Watch as something that someone has to do very often. In any case, it’s been simplified: With the Galaxy Watch 3, users can take a screenshot by simply pressing both side buttons at the same time. Easier to manage, but probably a little easier to do by mistake, too.
With this additional functionality revealed, there’s not much left to learn about the Galaxy Watch 3. We already have a good idea of what it will look like and some of the colors it will appear in. Apparently there will be nine different settings to choose from starting at $ 400 and up to $ 600, which may mean that some people prefer to stick with the current Galaxy Watch, which will likely be discounted.
These features could help the Galaxy Watch 3 better compete with the Apple Watch 6, which is configured to track sleep properly through watchOS 7 and can monitor its blood oxygen level.
If you’re wondering what happened to the Samsung Galaxy Watch 2, by the way, don’t worry – you didn’t miss it. Presumably, Samsung thought calling the new model “Galaxy Watch 2” would lead people to believe it was a slight upgrade to the Galaxy Watch Active 2, so it chose to skip a generation. We should see the watch in a matter of days at Samsung’s unpacked event on August 5, so stay tuned for more.
