Samsung Galaxy Fit will sneak out after Samsung S10 but what new features can it bring to the table?

published 15 February 2019

As well as 'accidentally' confirming the looming arrival of its Galaxy Watch Active, and Galaxy Buds, Samsung has also 'revealed' the existence of the Galaxy Fit and Galaxy Fit e. These are a pair of fitness bands and not, as we conjectured tongue-in-cheek a while back, a pair of Samsung Galaxy SmartShoes. Shame!

As with the Watch Active revelation, the confirmation of the Galaxy Fit and Fit e came via the new Galaxy Wearable app for Android, with a graphical menu asking which of the unreleased devices you'd like to connect to.

The new Galaxy Fit looks very much like a rebadged Samsung Gear Fit device, which is not entirely unexpected. We don't know much about the device apart from what was gleaned from its Bluetooth certification. Which is to say, it uses Bluetooth 5.0 and comes in black, silver, white and yellow finishes.

The Galaxy Fit e is an interesting twist to this tale, and logically will be either much the same device with a more high-end/pro (or more bargain basement) finish and/or feature set, or it'll be much the same device but with 4G connectivity as well as Wi-Fi, perhaps via an eSIM.

The app update was first spotted by Twitter account SamCentralTech. Cover your eyes now if you don't like foul language.

New Samsung wearables. Samsung fucked up and uploaded the updated Galaxy Wearables APK. pic.twitter.com/RfUjRXk2XuFebruary 15, 2019

The world of fitness bands has not been awash with innovation in recent years, and it's hard to see what Samsung is going to bring to the table this time, aside from a better screen and greater comfort. No doubt the bands will feature GPS, heart-rate tracking, step counting and workout monitoring.

The fact they'll debut alongside the Galaxy Buds suggests there may be some kind of live coaching feature for running and maybe other activities. This kind of feature was built directly into the Buds' predecessor, the IconX, but Samsung may take the view that it's more profitable to build it into the watch, so wearers can use their own choice of best running headphones or true wireless buds, rather than being locked in Samsung's eco-system.

It actually seems pretty unlikely that Samsung would bother to launch a pair of fitness bands alongside its flagship Samsung S10 and Galaxy X. They'll be showcased at Samsung Unpacked on February 20.

For Galaxy Fit and Galaxy Fit e, a launch alongside the similarly fitness-focussed Galaxy Watch Active and Galaxy Buds is more likely a few days later, at MWC 2019.

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Duncan is the former lifestyle editor of T3 and has been writing about tech for almost 15 years. He has covered everything from smartphones to headphones, TV to AC and air fryers to the movies of James Bond and obscure anime. His current brief is everything to do with the home and kitchen, which is good because he is an excellent cook, if he says so himself. He also covers cycling and ebikes – like over-using italics, this is another passion of his. In his long and varied lifestyle-tech career he is one of the few people to have been a fitness editor despite being unfit and a cars editor for not one but two websites, despite being unable to drive. He also has about 400 vacuum cleaners, and is possibly the UK's leading expert on cordless vacuum cleaners, despite being decidedly messy. A cricket fan for over 30 years, he also recently become T3's cricket editor, writing about how to stream obscure T20 tournaments, and turning out some typically no-nonsense opinions on the world's top teams and players.

Before T3, Duncan was a music and film reviewer, worked for a magazine about gambling that employed a surprisingly large number of convicted criminals, and then a magazine called Bizarre that was essentially like a cross between Reddit and DeviantArt, before the invention of the internet. There was also a lengthy period where he essentially wrote all of T3 magazine every month for about 3 years.

A broadcaster, raconteur and public speaker, Duncan used to be on telly loads, but an unfortunate incident put a stop to that, so he now largely contents himself with telling people, "I used to be on the TV, you know."