Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 gets a big feature-packed update

The Galaxy Watch 4 brought a much-needed software refresh to Samsung’s wearable game. Along with the sleek and stylish design, this smartwatch was the first one to sport Wear OS 3 out of the box, departing from Samsung’s own Tizen OS.

Now, two months later, the company is rolling out the first big software update to the Galaxy Watch 4 family, and it has some cool new features on board. According to SamMobile, Samsung is already gradually distributing the new firmware version R8xxXXU1DUJA in South Korea for the Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic. The update should reach other regions in the following weeks.

Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic new features

For starters, the new update brings some fresh new watch faces to the Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic. There’s one welcome change, concerning watch faces, too. With this new firmware, Samsung has made it possible for users to select a GIF image as a My Photo+ watch face.

This change should result in much more lively and animated watch faces. Oh, and by the way, there are new animations added to some of the watch faces, too.

Gesture support has been updated with the option to launch apps and features using gestures. In the previous version, gestures were used only to receive or reject calls, or deal with alarms.

There are some changes in the fall-detection feature, baked into the Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic. This feature uses the accelerometer to detect falls, and after a 60-second soundcheck (that you can disable if you’re okay), the watch will automatically send an SOS message to the listed emergency contacts, along with a location pin.

With the new firmware update, Samsung has made it possible to adjust the sensitivity of the feature, in order to prevent false activation when you do dynamic physical activities such as jumping, running, doing burpees, etc.

There are some minor improvements in the heart rate and stress tracking algorithms, too, making all the features that use these algorithms a tad more accurate.