Samsung's Health-Focused 'One UI 8 Watch' Beta Launches This Month, Just Not For Every Galaxy Watch

Samsung has just announced its first beta of One UI 8 Watch for Galaxy Watch, but this is the first time that the company won’t be releasing the beta to all of its Wear OS models.

The clear focus of One UI 8 Watch is on health features, with Samsung bringing a host of new tracking options to help you see the impact on your health.

This starts with sleep tracking, with a new Bedtime Guidance feature that will suggest “an optimal bedtime based on your lifestyle and sleep patterns while sending reminders to help you stick to it.” Samsung explains that this will analyze your sleep patterns in recent days to “calculate a bedtime that maximizes alertness the next day.”

Next up, Vascular Load will measure the “amount of stress on your vascular system” while you are sleeping. Specifically, it’s looking for “excessive fluctuations” in stress while sleeping, as these levels should naturally dip while sleeping.

A new Running Coach will provide “motivation and real-time guidance, creating a unique training program based on your fitness level to help you achieve your goals.” Another feature that works while you are awake is Antioxidant Index, which uses the Galaxy Watch’s sensors to measure carotenoids. Samsung says this measurement only takes five seconds.

Samsung notes that Vascular Load and Antioxidant Index will be available as “Labs” features first, while Bedtime Guidance requires at least three nights of sleep tracking. Running Coach will also require a “running level test” to assess what the user can do.

One UI 8 Watch also delivers a minor redesign to the system to better align with Samsung’s new design language, first introduced in the Android 15-based One UI 7 update. This is shown through icons, but things should overall feel similar. One UI 8 Watch is based on Wear OS 6.

Importantly, this is also the first Wear OS update that Samsung will not be providing to the Galaxy Watch 4 series. Samsung notes that the beta program is only available to “Galaxy Watch 5 or later.” We recently explained that this might be the case, though it’s very possible that Samsung will still provide a stable update to these devices later on.

Users based in South Korea and the U.S. with Galaxy Watch (Galaxy Watch5 or later released Galaxy Watch series) are eligible to join the beta Program.

As it stands today, One UI 8 Watch will be available to the following Galaxy Watch models:

Galaxy Watch 7
Galaxy Watch Ultra
Galaxy Watch FE
Galaxy Watch 6
Galaxy Watch 6 Classic
Galaxy Watch 5
Galaxy Watch 5 Pro

The Galaxy Watch 8 series, due to launch in July, are likely going to ship with One UI 8 Watch out of the box. The beta program starts before the end of this month.