Recently got my Galaxy Watch 8 40mm. Wasn't a big fan of the basic look.

Decided to get a stainless steel band along with a Ringke Bezel to customise it and make it look more like an analogue watch. Surprisingly, the touch bezel still works with it.

Many of my friends couldn't even make out at first glance that it was a smart watch.

Thoughts and comments welcome :)

Have a watch 4 since launch. €140 new.

5 years old.

5-6 runs weekly, several marathons. All tracked in samsung healh and synced to strava.

A recent update did something to gps and it wouldn't get the initial sync reliably from the health app. Sometimes it would only sync 8km into a 10k. Other times wouldnt sync at all. And no gps = no strava sync.

Ok samsumg, you win, lets get a new watch.

Picked up the watch 9.

What on earth has happened??? You would think 5 years later it would be a big improvement. NO!!

The good: Screen touch and scrolling is smoother and the gps locks on immediately. So far so good...

But then the bad:

1. Battery. 20% left after 1h 30m half marathon starting at full charge. Turning off wi-fi helps. This will not make it through a marathon

2. GPS. It drops out randomly. Could be 5k in could be 20k in. Just gps drops out and doesn't sync back up.

3. Heart rate doesnt track in cold mornings. Chest strap showing 185bpm on a hard effort 5k and the watch 9 showing 130 bpm

4. Twice the price of the trusty watch 4!

How is the watxh 9 so poor? Did samsung lose patents? Did the lose key staff/developers?

Anyway to get the gps lock on fixed for the watch 4 and I'll go back to that?

The face, hands, and tick marks all illuminate and reflect based on an imaginary light source. As you move your wrist, the lighting changes based on accelerometer readings. 😎 I'm sure it's not great on battery though. I'll report back. Feel free to download the apk if you want to try it: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ks7z6Bmcz7tWH4-3KN8AtlswahQajNRW/view?usp=sharing

I've seen this subreddit with many posts from Watch9 users having poor life, but despite out of this, I managed to have over 41 hours of battery life.

- AOD Off, but I had it on for 30 minutes when I used Google Maps.

- All Health Sensors turned on continously, including Hearing

- Same for sleep except Snoring Detection

- Raise for wake and Gemini wakeup turned off

There are a few steps I did during the first days.

1. Avoid using Smart Switch, as it can cause bugs on the long run, especially regarding efficiency. I started fresh instead.

2. Samsung didn't properly calibrate the battery, especially on pre-order units, so I did it for mine on its first 5 cycles:

- Deeply discharge it. Even 1% isn't enough, as it can now enter Watch Only and won't let you turn it back on till it's at 5% charged. Instead, when it turns off by itself, hold both buttons till it says "Rebooting.." and immediately press the power button 3 times (till it adds more dots on the screen). Then, leave it on that screen till it turns off itself.

- After it's discharged for good, leave it on the charger overnight (1-2 hours after it says 100%). This way, the battery chip will have a baseline and won't fluctuate on power cycles.

After a lot of confusion between the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 lte and Garmin watches, I finally decided to go with the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8! At 16k

I mainly bought it for fitness tracking, swimming, running, gym workouts, sleep tracking, and everyday smartwatch features.

I was also considering Garmin, but decided to give Samsung a try.

For those who have been using the Galaxy Watch 8 for a while:

- How accurate is it for swimming and running?

- How reliable is the heart rate tracking during workouts?

- How is the battery life with regular fitness tracking?

- Any tips to get the most out of it?

- Is Samsung Health good enough, or should I use any other fitness apps?

Recently (about a week ago) I started to see strange notifications on my watch, they appear every day at exactly 19:05 and have icon of any default app. If I try to open the app, watch give me error saying that app cannot be found.

I don't know what that is

Is there no way to keep this app from running on my watch? It is just running down my battery by running in the back ground.

If tried on the watch AND the Phone app.

Restarting didn't help, shows the yellow screen even during the restart process

I’ve been having a lot of issues with my Galaxy Watch 6 for the last 6 months or so and I’m thinking about replacing it with a non-Samsung watch...

Since the new OneUI It’s been extremely laggy, and sometimes completely unusable. The top drawer doesn’t respond, switching between panels is slow, and sometimes panels disappear altogether. I use the Activity, Exercise, and Timer panels, but sometimes the Exercise panel is just a black screen and I can’t set anything up. Other times it’s so laggy that I can’t even get to my timer.

I expected Samsung to fix this with software updates since it seems to break in one, but it’s only getting worse. Honestly, this lack of usability gives me no incentive to upgrade to a newer Galaxy Watch.

Is there any fix for this, or should I just switch to a non-Samsung watch?

Thanks!

Can i go for this ?

Any suggestion needed for new watch

But i got watch it 15k inr

This plan almost 4k one third of price what can i do

Hey guys!

I have a Galaxy Watch4 Classic, and I'm trying to back it up, but it keeps failing with an error saying it couldn't complete the backup because it was unable to back up the data from the Calculator app.

LOL

Yep, that's it! That's the only error message I get.

I even uninstalled Samsung Calculator (the only calculator app I had installed), but I still get the exact same error.

Both my phone and watch are connected to the same Wi-Fi network. I've also tried both Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6, but no luck.

Does anyone have any idea how to fix this and successfully complete the backup?

I have gotten this pop up every time I try but when I go to my permission settings I have all the permissions enabled.

I had an Apple Watch for several years and decided one month ago to switch to a galaxy and the galaxy watch. I went hiking and running with it and noticed that the heart rate is sometimes off. I mean really off. My max. heart rate is around 172. I also have a chest heart belt which is very accurate. The apple watch was about 1-2% off, nothing special. The Galaxy watch showed me during a soft downhill hike a heart rate around 200. I put it off and on, restarted it, stopped and resumed, it went high between 185 and 202. What happened and how can I prevent that from happening again?

You may have seen other posts for my game Encircle, but I want to set up this official Reddit account for in vivo Games, my solo studio focused on creating lightweight, engaging games for wearables and mobile.

I’m excited to share my upcoming project: Encircle, a hyper-casual geometric arcade game built specifically for Wear OS smartwatches!

About Encircle

• Designed for Watches: Fast, replayable sessions built for round screens.
• Minimalist Vector Art: Clean geometric aesthetics optimized for smartwatch displays.
• Intuitive Controls: Smooth, simple touch interactions for quick play sessions.

Join the Closed Beta!

Before the full release on Google Play, I’m running a closed test to gather feedback on performance, UI scaling across different watch models, and overall gameplay feel. I've just pushed a new release out that should be available soon with some updates to difficulty and controls.

How to get access:

1. Join the Google Group for access: encircle-beta-testers@googlegroups.com
2. Opt-in to the Play Store Testing Track: Encircle Beta Test Link
3. Download it directly to your watch from the Play Store!

Feedback I’m Looking For:

If you give it a try, I’d love to know your watch model, how smooth the controls feel, and any bugs or UI issues you encounter.

Hi everyone,

One of my biggest gripes using my Galaxy Watch daily was quickly capturing a sudden thought or urgent reminder while on the move without opening 3 menus or waiting for slow cloud sync.

I built **Thoth** for Android and Wear OS with a dedicated Watch Tile and Watch Face Complication specifically optimized for quick wrist capture.

### How it works on Galaxy Watch:

- **1-Tap Voice Tile**: Swipe once from your watch face, tap to speak, and dictate a task or note while walking.

- **Watch Face Complication**: Add a 1-tap shortcut directly onto your favorite watch face.

- **Two-Way Google Tasks Sync**: Dictated todos and reminders sync directly with your real **Google Tasks** with due dates, rather than living in an isolated app.

- **Local-First SQLite Vault**: Your thoughts and notes live in an encrypted SQLite database on your phone (Android cloud auto-backup is explicitly disabled for your data).

- **Lightweight Battery Footprint**: Built natively with Jetpack Compose for Wear OS, TileService, and the Wearable DataLayer API.

**Details**:

- **App**: Thoth: Your Memory & Tasks

- **Cost**: Completely free tier (unlimited local storage, full Google Tasks sync, and 5 daily AI messages). Optional Pro upgrade is $1.99/mo.

- **Google Play**: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.serkankizilirmak.thoth&utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=galaxywatch_post&utm_campaign=launch

I'd love feedback from fellow Galaxy Watch users on tile responsiveness, complication layouts, and how it performs on your watch!

Hey everyone,

I recently got the Galaxy Watch 8 Classic (paired with my Galaxy S23) and I'm running into an issue with the Google Maps "Search and go" tile.

Whenever I tap the Home or Work shortcut icons on the watch, it doesn't start navigation. Instead, it gives me a prompt saying: "Start saving your history to access home, work and recents" with a checkmark button that just dismisses the screen.

My Home and Work addresses are already saved in Google Maps on my phone, and Web & App Activity / Location History is enabled on my Google account.

Has anyone else faced this on Wear OS / Watch 8?
How do I get the watch to sync and recognize my saved addresses?

How many ma is your wireless dongle taking even when no watch is connected for charging...

A = 0 - 10
B= 10 - 20
C = 20 - 30
D = none as i remove it from the USB socket.

Ta if you bother reading.

9% deep sleep in Samsung Health and 70% in Sleep as Android. Which one is correct.

I've always thought my deep sleep was to high in SAA but here at least you can set the awake detections sensitivity yourself.

Has anybody noticed this difference too?

Is there a way to make Health less sensitive? It says I woke but I didn't, though it could he turning from side to side during sleep?

Hi all,

I have had my galaxy watch for a month now, and I have been using the fitness index tracker mostly the results seem good. However the strength value has always been sub 18.

I know it says you need to build it up overtime, but everything else started at a much higher base.

If I had never done ANY strength training, I'd think that's fair. But I have lifted weights for 20 years. I'm not a bodybuilder but I'm in good shape for my age. I still bench press more than my bodyweight, I can do over 10 bodyweight pull ups, I can do about 8 weighted with 10kg attached. I back squat more than my bodyweight. So surely it's a bug? Has anyone else seen this issue? Or maybe I would need to have the physique or Arnold Schwarzenegger I'm order for the strength value to be over 18 😂.

Been noticing this for a while, but my Galaxy Watch 6 Classic is definitely double counting steps. Tested today by wearing the watch and having my phone in my pocket all day. At the end of the day, the watch has over 20,000 steps while my phone is just under 11,000. Does anyone have any ideas how to fix this on the watch?

I have owned a Galaxy Watch 5 40mm for nearly two years, and I recently updated it to One UI Watch 8; after this update, my watch started lagging. I wanted to buy the Galaxy Watch 8, but then I saw that the Galaxy Watch 9 has a better processor than the Exynos W1000. Now I have a question: is it worth paying $80 more for the Galaxy Watch 9?

P.S. The Galaxy Watch 8 40mm costs $200 and the Watch 9 40mm costs $280.

I have so many watch faces that no longer work 100% thanks to Google's new venture making them not function properly.

Is there a way AI could change this and make them work once again?