The Samsung Galaxy Watch 2 could be released any time, as it's been spotted again at Chinese regulators.
Two watches codenamed the SM-R840/845 and SM-R850/855 have received the Compulsory Certification of China from regulators – according to Sammobile which means a launch might not be far off.
All this tallies with reports from April 2020, which saw the same codenames, which likely point to two different sized smartwatches.
For those who follow this kind of thing, those monikors clearly refer to Samsung’s range of smartwatches, and have been named in Galaxy Watch leaks in the past – although we don't know whether this will be a Galaxy Watch 2 or Galaxy Watch Active 3.
Check whats next: Upcoming smartwatches 2020
Two codenames points to two sizes, so we’re likely looking at the similar 40mm and 44mm to the existing Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 or the 42mm/46mm versions from the original Galaxy Watch.
We’ve also seen R845 and R855 models mentioned, which should be the LTE equivalents.
As we reported in May 2020, it looks set that Samsung will offer a premium titanium version of the Galaxy Watch 2.
We know from previous certifications that we’re likely to see the device in black, silver, and gold.
And it seems rumors we previously reported about storage being upped to 8GB will happen – great news for those enjoying Spotify offline syncing, which has been supported for a few generations of devices now.
Finally, battery will increase in size, from 247mAh on the Active 2 to 330mAh – which seems unlikely to majorly change longevity from the current 36(ish) hours – but could power new, current smartwatch features.
And from the way the smartwatch wellness industry is moving, that will likely be further elements of 24/7 tracking.
Samsung has never been a brand to shy away from adding new features, so we’d expect to see something that competes directly with the Apple Watch Series 5.
We'd expect ECG and Afib detection, sleep tracking, blood oxygen using SpO2 and blood pressure – for which Samsung recently won clearance from South Korean health authorities.
The Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 has always enjoyed an always-on display too, so Samsung already has the jump on Apple in terms of battery life.
But given Apple seems to be dabbling with even more potent health tracking stats ahead of its Series 6 launch later this year, we wouldn’t bet against Samsung taking a deeper look at stress tracking as part of its wellness offering.
That’s as well as building upon things like Spotify support to compete with Apple Music on the Apple Watch.
This is all speculation, but we’d also hazard a guess that we won’t have to wait too long.
How we test
James is the co-founder of Wareable, and he has been a technology journalist for 15 years.
He started his career at Future Publishing, James became the features editor of T3 Magazine and T3.com and was a regular contributor to TechRadar – before leaving Future Publishing to found Wareable in 2014.
James has been at the helm of Wareable since 2014 and has become one of the leading experts in wearable technologies globally. He has reviewed, tested, and covered pretty much every wearable on the market, and is passionate about the evolving industry, and wearables helping people achieve healthier and happier lives.