Samsung has announced an update to its Galaxy Watch series.

In a press release, the company said that the Samsung Health app will soon "detect signs of sleep apnea using a compatible Samsung Galaxy Watch and cell phone" thanks to a feature that has finally received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

This was clarified.

While this is not a new ambition for Samsung (the company previously received approval from the South Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in October), the sign-off allows the company to provide a vague timeline for the feature's release in the US. According to Samsung, the product is expected to be released in the third quarter of 2024, sometime between July and September.

This release date suggests that it will be a launch feature for the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Watch 7, but what is less clear is which other wearables will support it. Samsung has stated that it will be available on the Galaxy Watch series, which suggests that there will be multiple models. However, this could also be a way to avoid naming a product that does not yet officially exist.

In any case, this is a welcome new health feature. Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is the inability to breathe properly during sleep, a condition that, if untreated, leads to poor sleep quality and daytime fatigue. Worse, as Samsung points out, untreated it can "increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension, coronary artery disease, heart failure, arrhythmias, and stroke."

The update detects "moderate or severe OSA" and allows Galaxy Watch owners to "seek medical care to reduce the likelihood of health-related complications."

The feature appears to work passively, requiring users to record at least 4 hours of sleep at a time, twice in a 10-day period. Samsung, however, has stated that this feature is limited to people over the age of 22 who have not yet been diagnosed with sleep apnea.

Samsung is not the only company aiming to track sleep apnea from the wrist; Fitbit introduced the feature on its Ionic smartwatch in 2017, and Withings followed suit in 2020. It is also rumored that the feature will be introduced when the Apple Watch X arrives in September.