Leaked images reveal One UI coming to the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active (Updated)

Update, February 12 at 12:10 p.m. ET: The folks at SamMobile have leaked a handful of new Samsung Galaxy Watch Active images, giving us a closer look at the revamped software expected to arrive on the watch. The most notable thing worth pointing out is that Samsung is bringing its new One UI interface to the watch. Though, as SamMobile notes, most of the One UI elements on the Galaxy Watch Active won’t be as drastic as what’s found on Samsung’s smartphones.

In the image above, you can see six new watch faces that will launch on the Galaxy Watch Active. Each one appears to have at least a little information regarding activity and health stats.

SamMobile also notes the Watch Active will sport a centralized activity tracker, presumably just a swipe or two away that gives users quicker access to their steps taken, recent workouts, weekly summaries, and more. You can check it out in the image below:

Finally, the Galaxy Watch Active might bring some improvements to heart rate tracking. If the user activates continuous heart rate tracking, the smartwatch will apparently give the user a high heart rate notification if it senses their resting heart rate is rising above a certain level.

More images can be found at SamMobile.

Original article, February 11 at 11:34 a.m. ET: One of the genuinely useful features on the Samsung Galaxy Watch — and older Samsung smartwatches for that matter — is the physically rotating watch dial. It’s an ingenious way to navigate around the user interface without making the user scroll through a tiny display with their smudgy fingers. Unfortunately Samsung’s upcoming sport smartwatch might not have this feature.

According to a leak from SamMobile, the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Watch Active smartwatch will not have a rotating bezel for navigating around the user interface. This was heavily suggested by the renders that leaked last week, but now we have a second publication’s word that the watch will launch without the feature. The Galaxy Watch Active isn’t rumored to come with a rotating button on the side either, so it looks like touching and swiping will be the only way to navigate around the UI.

This is a bit confusing, especially because the Galaxy Watch Active is expected to come with a 1.1-inch AMOLED display — 1mm smaller than the Gear Sport’s screen. It will reportedly keep the same resolution at 360 x 360 pixels, though.

According to the rumor, the upcoming watch will also have a much smaller battery at 236mAh compared to the Gear Sport’s 300mAh cell. Hopefully that will be enough to keep the heart rate sensor and built-in GPS powered through long workouts.

When it comes time for charging, the Galaxy Watch Active will sit on a redesigned charger that lays flat, instead of sitting upright like the Galaxy Sport with its dock-like charger. If you happen to purchase either the Galaxy S10, S10 Plus, or S10e, you’ll likely be able to charge up your smartwatch with the phones’ reverse wireless charging feature. Gimmick or not, at least it’s another way to keep your smartwatch from dying when you’re not at home.

A few other rumored hardware specs: The Galaxy Watch Active is expected to come with a 5ATM water resistance rating, a MIL-STD-810G rating, a dual-core Exynos 9110 chipset, Bluetooth 4.2, NFC for Samsung Pay, Wi-Fi (no LTE variant), and measure 13mm thick compared to the Gear Sport’s 11.6mm thickness. Additionally, the Watch Active will likely launch with Tizen OS version 4.0.0.3, support for Bixby Reminders, and carry model number SM-R500.

Ultimately, these rumors should all be taken with a grain of salt until Samsung officially launches the Galaxy Watch Active alongside the Galaxy S10 lineup on Wednesday, February 20.