Samsung is counting on the key advantage of no subscription fees to win over fitness tracker adopters At a time when many consumer companies in the health sector are charging users monthly, the new Galaxy Ring, Galaxy Watch 7, and Galaxy Watch Ultra will be offered without a software paywall

Samsung Health, Samsung's integrated health and wellness app, has been free to customers since its launch in 2012 Standard on all Samsung smartwatches (and now the Samsung Smart Ring), Samsung Health is a way for users to monitor and review insights about their wellness It's full of great features such as sleep analysis, exercise tracking, nutritional planning, and period prediction, based largely on data collected by Samsung wearables

This year's wearables collection is upping the ante with advanced health tools such as sleep apnea detection and AGEs index measurement, as well as personalized insights powered by Galaxy AI and Samsung's latest generation BioActive sensors Samsung's Vice President of Digital Health and Digital Media, and a member of the Samsung Group's Digital Health team When I sat down with Dr Hong Pak, Samsung's vice president and head of the digital health team, to hear more about these latest Samsung Health features, I couldn't resist asking

Speaking to a small group of media after Samsung Unpacked 2024, Dr Pak detailed the highlights of this year's wearable devices and what can be done to "simplify healthcare as much as possible" as healthcare shifts more heavily to the home

Samsung's commitment to democratizing users' personal understanding of their health seems clear, given that it does not require regular payments beyond the initial investment in hardware The latter smart ring market leader charges $599 per month for its fitness tracking service

There have been instances in the past where services have later moved to a fee-based format, whether to take advantage of demand or to offset costs associated with developing and maintaining core features However, Dr Park is confident that Samsung Health's current collection of features will not do so

"With the features we have now, there's nothing that says you have to go back to these features and pay for these," he said I don't believe that will happen" In talking to our leadership, I don't see us offering something for free and then going back to it"

But that does not mean that Samsung Health will remain 100% free forever

"At some point, when we add value beyond what we offer, it may be worth enough to charge for premium services," Dr Park said

Dr Pak gave examples of what features could have value that customers would be willing to pay for:

"For example, let's say you have a drug tracking feature that is already available in the US, is well received, and people love it We're working with Walgreens to automatically download prescriptions for Walgreens customers" We're working with Walgreens to allow Walgreens customers to download their prescriptions automatically If we were to do that and add value, should we charge a subscription fee? Perhaps it's something to consider"

According to Dr Pack, there is no "timeline" or guarantee that Samsung is something that wants to pursue a pay-per-use structure with respect to future feature rollouts However, those who pre-order the Galaxy Ring or pre-order the new Galaxy Watch should be somewhat reassured that they will not be charged a subscription fee to use current features, including the new features just announced