Samsung Health 2026 Hands-On Update: Top 5 Changes

I’ve used Garmin Connect, Fitbit, Google Health, and Xiaomi’s various health tracking apps in the past, but I’ve always felt most comfortable with Samsung Health. The home base for the Galaxy Watch and the company’s suite of fitness trackers has seen few massive UI changes over the years, but this week, the company launched a shiny new app ahead of Galaxy Watch 9 debut and launch of One UI 9. And boy, is it different?

Although my initial impression was one of disgust and disappointment, after using the app for several hours, I can confirm that my feelings are more complicated than that. There is good and bad here, and I have experienced both.

Here are some of the biggest changes I’ve noticed, including the hits and misses.

I’m usually a fool for a color touch in my android apps. There is nothing more pleasing to the eye than high contrasts and bright tones. However, there is a limit and the Samsung Health redesign has taken it too far.

The new user interface makes prolific use of color, from the bold, shadowy background and incredibly bright widget cards to the graphics displayed on them. It’s so far removed from the previous utilitarian version that my eyes have become accustomed to.

While I don’t explicitly hate this colorful review, I do have a problem with its inconsistency.

Back in the days of the Galaxy S8, the Samsung Health app used a single color that corresponded to a specific metric: green for activity and blue for sleep, for example. The colors used in this redesign have no correlation to the data they represent. Purples are used for calories and sleep scores, blues for workouts and body composition, while stress and food use orange as default shades. These colors and the relationships between these metrics are incongruent.

This is color for color’s sake. And again, while I have no complaints with colorful apps, apps that present relevant data to the user must ensure that their form complements their function.

However, not all aesthetic changes are negative. The latest version of Samsung Health features a top shortcut bar that allows me to jump between the core aspects of health and wellness: Activity, Sleep, Vitals, Mindfulness, and Nutrition.

A sixth option at the top of the list takes me back to the dashboard: the section of the Health app that I can rotate as I see fit. Moving health widgets around the dashboard, expanding and shrinking them, is a UI feature reminiscent of smartly designed weather apps, and it makes a lot of sense in a health app with numerous similar metrics.

Return to the shortcuts bar. These silos keep all relevant features and information in their respective sections, reducing the time spent searching for each metric throughout the application. I don’t have to second-guess whether I pinned the Body Composition widget to my dashboard; I can go directly to Nutrition to find it. I will find Running Coach in Activity and heart rate in Vitales. It just makes sense.

Finding this ever-growing list of health indicators was an issue with the previous UI, and it’s good to see Samsung fix it. Of course, a search function would make this experience even better, but I’m not criticizing this clear improvement.

Graphs are essential to present the information collected by the various health sensors of a smartwatch. Samsung Health’s redesign focuses on improving this important visual aid, but the changes made to the graphics are perhaps the most unpredictable in the app.

Some charts can now be pinched or expanded to narrow or widen the X axis, but this only applies to a handful of charts, not all. The sleep graph, for example, shows several small lines that indicate when I’m restless during the night. This was also a fixture in previous versions of the app, but I’d like to zoom in at specific times to investigate these sections, perhaps relating them to noises I heard during the night. However, this specific graph does not support pinching.

What’s particularly confusing is that the same limitation applies to heart rate and blood oxygen during sleep, at least through the Sleep widget. However, the heart rate graph and blood oxygen graphs while awake admit pinches. Again, why the inconsistency? Why don’t all graphics support pinching?

Samsung Health still lacks a feature I desperately want: a full charts page that supports aggregating multiple metrics. This would allow me to better understand how data changes over time, between indicators and contexts throughout the day or night.

Samsung apparently thinks this is partly a good idea. Most indicators have a Compare data option at the bottom of their pages. It’s easy to miss, but tapping this option allows me to add one more metric to view. This is useful, of course, but still limited.

I can’t compare total steps to sleep time, nor to the skeletal muscle indicator of exercise and body composition. This would allow me to see if I’m sleeping soundly after long afternoon walks or if my current exercise regimen is building muscle, even if my overall weight is increasing. It would be better to highlight the relationship between various health indicators.

Unfortunately, you can only compare data points within specific metrics. Sleep time vs. sleep score, for example.

A main reason for the Samsung Health update is to make way for its new health features in One UI 9, most of which are compatible with the upcoming selection of wearable devices. Naturally, as a Galaxy Watch 4 user, many of these features and those released with the Galaxy Watch 7 are not supported on my watch. However, Samsung makes sure I’m aware of this by including all of these unsupported feature widgets on the dashboard by default.

Ideally, the app should adapt to the capabilities of my device and hide features that are not supported by my watch. Instead, Hearing, Fitness Index, Daily Cardio Load, Heart Health, Vitals, and Vascular Load are present in the initial settings of Samsung Health, and none of them work with my Galaxy Watch 4. I either accept the waste of space or I’m tasked with manually hiding them from the dashboard. What’s worse, these widgets are set in stone within the dedicated silos I mentioned above.

What’s even more annoying is the constant reappearance of certain widgets that I removed from my home screen. Vascular load, in particular, keeps showing up on my dashboard. At this point, I’m not sure if this is just a bug or a planned feature.

It’s a minor issue for me, but one that would certainly confuse Galaxy Watch newbies and less tech-savvy users.

The redesign of Samsung Health is a promising step in an exciting direction. It’s certainly colorful, shows glimpses of usability improvements, and teases Galaxy Watch fans with plenty of new features. However, there is still a long list of clear mistakes and potential gains hiding in plain sight.

I expect Samsung Health to receive constant updates once One UI 9 and the Galaxy Watch 9 series are released, and hopefully these updates will benefit owners of newer watches and those who remain with legacy hardware.

For now, you might want to enjoy the old Samsung Health product while it’s still available.