Galaxy Watch 9 & Ultra 2 - Initial Scientific Review!
In a Nutshell
The Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 and Watch 9 delivered strong heart rate tracking with 0.98-0.99 correlations across cycling and running, outperforming 69-88% of competing devices. Sleep stage tracking placed both in second-tier performance, correctly identifying 81-86% of deep sleep but over-detecting REM and light sleep stages. GPS accuracy on the Ultra 2 was notably good, marking the first positive recommendation for recent Galaxy watches in scientific testing.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
The Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 and Galaxy Watch 9 were tested for sports and health tracking capabilities, including indoor cycling, running, and outdoor cycling. GPS tracking and sleep stage tracking performance were also evaluated. Both devices performed surprisingly well in initial testing.
For indoor cycling (spinning), the Polar H10 chest strap served as the gold standard reference device. The Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 achieved a correlation of 0.99 with the reference device. Each dot represents a single heart rate measurement, with values clustering close to the blue line indicating strong agreement. The session data showed good overlap between the reference device (blue-green) and the Ultra 2 (red) with only minor deviations.
During running, the correlation was 0.98, which is acceptable. Most data points remained close to the blue line, though some deviation occurred in the higher heart rate range. The Ultra 2 occasionally registered slightly too high or too low, but overall tracking remained quite good. The run session showed occasional brief spikes of a few BPM too high, but nothing problematic.
Based on two short bike rides, outdoor cycling results showed good performance. Most points clustered close to the blue line with a correlation of 0.98. Some points fell slightly below or above the line, but deviations were minimal. The first bike ride showed nice agreement with only minor detail differences, while the second ride missed some full heart rate peaks but still performed well compared to competition.
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