The Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 features an FDA-approved ECG monitor, meaning the new smartwatch can detect signs of atrial fibrillation like the Apple Watch

If you were following Samsung Unpacked on Wednesday, you may have missed this news: Samsung announced the eye-popping Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 as if the FDA had given the green light only moments before was sneaked in

Seriously, the FDA approval footnote was so quick that I had to confirm what I heard via Twitter

And yes, the ECG monitor is approved for use While Samsung appears to have made this announcement casual, it's a pretty big deal in comparison to the Apple Watch Especially with the release of the Apple Watch 6 coming just after the Galaxy Watch 3 [While the Apple Watch's FDA-approved ECG sensor is old news (it debuted in the Apple Watch Series 4), Samsung was slow to get its version approved; the Watch Active 2 has it, but it was unapproved until last month

In May, it received approval from South Korea's Ministry of Food and Drug Safety to measure and analyze users' heart rhythms for arrhythmias indicative of atrial fibrillation

And we speculated that ECG would be largely dormant in the new Galaxy Watch because Samsung cannot enable ECG in other countries unless it receives similar approval from the necessary government agencies In the US, this is the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

Given that Samsung acted as if its ECG reading technology had received FDA approval just hours ago,

we do not expect it to work on the Samsung Galaxy Watch 3, which will be released on August 6