Samsung today announced a few new wearables to go along with the Galaxy Fold and Galaxy S10 family of smartphones. The new wearables range from earbuds to a smartwatch, with a couple of fitness trackers in between.
Galaxy Buds
The Galaxy Buds are pretty much what we already expected. They're a pair of Bluetooth earbuds with a similar form factor to Apple's AirPods. They support Bluetooth 5.0. The Galaxy Buds are powered by AKG, which Samsung has typically partnered with for sound accessories, and they last up to six hours of audio on a charge, or five hours of calls.
You can extend that with the charging case, though, and that will get you up to 13 hours for audio streaming or 11 hours of call time. A 15-minute charging period will get you 1.7 hours of playback time on the Buds, according to Samsung. What's more, you can charge the case itself using the reverse wireless charging on the Galaxy S10 smartphone, so you don't have to depend on a power outlet to continue listening.
Of course, as with anything Samsung these days, the Galaxy Buds integrate with Bixby, so you can use voice to do things such as calling and sending messages.
The Galaxy Buds come in either black or white, and they will start at $129, and you can get them directly from Samsung or your favorite retailer starting March 8. Pre-ordering a Galaxy S10 or S10+ will also allow you to get one for free.
Galaxy Watch Active
The Galaxy Watch Active is a new smartwatch that's similar to the Galaxy Watch in many ways but comes with a few new features such as blood pressure monitoring. There are also breathing exercises to help you stay calm throughout the day.
It also offers fitness tracking features, with automatic detection for activities such as running, walking, and riding a bike. It's also water resistant up to 5ATM of pressure and it has an IP68 rating, so you can use it when you go swimming. You can manually track as many as 39 different activities, too.
It runs Samsung's own Tizen OS, powered by the Exynos 9110 chipset, and it has 4GB of onboard storage and 768MB of RAM. It supports Bluetooth 4.2 and Wi-Fi, but there doesn't seem to be an LTE version yet. It has a 1.1-inch round screen, with a 360x360 resolution, and the battery comes in at 230mAh.
The Galaxy Watch Active will also launch on March 8, and you can get it directly from Samsung starting at $199.99. It will come in four colors: Silver, Black, Rose Gold, Sea Green. If you pre-order before March 7, you can also get a free wireless charging stand worth worth $59.99.
Galaxy Fit and Fit e
If what you're after is a fitness tracker without all the smartwatch features, the Galaxy Fit and Fit e might be for you. Like the Watch Active, it can automatically detect and track physical activity, but you manually set it to start tracking over 90 different activities from the Samsung Health app on your smartphone.
The fitness trackers do have a handful of unique features, too. You can still get notifications on your wrist, and they can sync information from your phone, including alarms, calendar, and weather information. Another cool feature is that when you travel to a different time zone, the Fit and Fit e will automatically have two watch faces for the two time zones.
The Fit and Fit e are much lighter than the Watch Active, but they feature the same water resistance so you don't have to take them off at the beach.
There are big differences between the Fit and Fit e, though. The regular Fit has a 0.95-inch AMOLED display at 120x240 resolution, while the cheaper model will settle for a 0.74-inch PMOLED panel with a lowly 64x128 resolution. The bigger model also has more RAM and ROM, and it features a bigger battery that can be charged wirelessly, while the cheaper model uses Pogo connectors for charging.
The Galaxy Fit will be available in the second quarter of 2019, though pricing hasn't been announced yet, and they're not available for pre-order. The regular model will come in either black or silver, while the cheaper one can also be had in yellow.
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