I bought this for my wife, and she's been pretty disappointed so far. It's a shame, because I was planning to get another one for myself, and now I'll have to re-think my options. Here's her feedback: I chose the Galaxy Watch 5 primarily to replace a fitness tracker (Amazon's Halo, which is being shut down), thinking the other features would be a nice perk. The problem is the health and sleep trackers are terrible. - Halo's sleep tracking was the most accurate I've ever used. It caught every time I woke up, it was spot on with REM cycles (as I often wake mid-dream, so I know when they're ending), etc. The Watch 5's sleep tracking is lacking. It misses awake time, and it likes to lump far too much into "light sleep" even when I know I was in REM before waking. The Halo also tracked deep sleep well, and it generally showed earlier in the night like you'd expect. The Watch 5 shows me going in and out of deep sleep all night, which isn't generally how sleep cycles work (usually more deep sleep early and more REM later). I suspect it's tied to the Watch 5 messing up REM tracking and just categorizing it as anything else. Other health tracking is equally bad: - The O2 sensor routinely shows drastic drops at night (as in below 80). There's no sleep apnea or anything like that at play. This seems to happen whenever it disconnects from the wrist slightly. You'll see dotted lines when this happens. But it happens all night long. The watch is either too loose or too tight. You'll need a third party band that doesn't rely on notches if you want it to fit properly for scans. This happens with one-off O2 checks as well, even when an oximeter shows me at 98% and the Watch 5 will show low 90s or even lower. You can't trust it. - There is no ability to use the blood pressure feature in the U.S. This was a key reason this watch was chosen, and I went with it because people in the Q&A kept saying it was finally enabled here. It is not (as of May 1, 2023). To be able to use it, you'll have to side-load a different version of the app from a third party. I'm not comfortable with this when it comes to health information and who could gain access to it. Had this been clearer up-front, it would have been a deal killer. - The heart rate monitor is mostly OK, but I'll see wild fluctuations sometimes when I have the live monitor on the watch face (set to check continuously, not it's not an "every 10 min" thing). For example, it might show 120, then suddenly drop to 80 or 90 before settling in with a proper live measurement (double-checked with the oximeter and blood pressure monitor's heart rate results). - The ECG is an absolute joke. It's dangerous this is even included in its current state. I've had concerns in the recent past and have had full work-ups with a cardiologist (I'm fine). This ECG monitor frequently comes back with Afib results. Thing is, I know how to read an ECG report, and they do not show anything close to Afib. I also have a (much better) ECG monitor, so when I see those results, I double check with that. It's always normal. If you search a bit, you'll find false positive Afib readings are quite common on Galaxy watches, leading people to panic for no reason and spend a lot of money on doctor's visits, holter tests, 12-lead ECGs, etc. only to be told nothing is wrong. If you have heart issues, you can't rely on this. If you don't, this could raise your stress significantly for no reason. At least with the blood pressure option they're withholding from us, you could calibrate things. You can't with this. And again it seems to be an issue with their contacts (either not accounting for fluctuations up front as you situate your finger, or the wrist contact not being secure enough). Oh, and if you actually want to use regular health monitors (like continuous heart rate tracking and o2 tracking while you sleep), expect to charge this thing daily. And this is the 44mm. The 40mm has a smaller battery, so I can't even imagine how bad that's going to be. (And no, I'm not leaving the screen on 24/7 or anything like that.) Back to the heart rate monitor... another key reason I picked this smart watch was because I was told it could sound alerts if you hit target heart rates. Nothing at all like that. All you can do is set a single max and min for an alert. And the max can't be higher than 150, which is nowhere near my max. Worse, this only works while you're at rest, if your heart rate spikes for no reason. My interest was much more about monitoring my heart rate zones during workouts because I sometimes push too hard for too long. I wanted alerts when I exceeded a target while working out so I'd know to ease off a bit when I go too hard. So basically, all the health functions I bought this for are a bust. I haven't thoroughly tested the step counting yet, and I've barely used any other apps given I mostly got this for health and fitness monitoring. On those fronts though, this device is looking like an absolute failure. Long-time Samsung customers, so husband and I were hoping these would work well with our s22 ultra and s23 ultra, but what's the point of having extra features if you use a Samsung phone if you can't rely on them for anything?
