Galaxy Watch Active 2: ECG Function should be delivered later: new schedule from Samsung

Almost a year after the start of sales, there is still no trace of the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 ECG functionality that was promised at launch. Upon request, Samsung provided us with a schedule. Which, however, should not satisfy all users.

Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 (from 205 euros on Amazon) will go on sale in Germany from the beginning of September 2019. Even before the start of sales, it was announced that smartwatches can perform an electrocardiogram (ECG). But this feature should be introduced later using a software update. This update was also released a few months ago. But initially only in South Korea, Samsung’s home country.

In this country, customers still have to wait for opportunities. Since the release of the Galaxy Watch 3 is inevitable, customers are gradually starting to worry about whether the update should appear in this country. One of our readers asked Samsung support and received the following shocking response:

New schedule from Samsung

The functions of ECGs and blood pressure measurement can be implemented via the My BP Lab app. But so far these are only available in other countries such as the USA, UK, Australia, Canada, and others. There are no plans to introduce these functions on the German market at the moment.

The company not only declares that this feature is no longer planned for the German market. But even customers turn to a third-party application that also does not work in Germany. Therefore, we ourselves asked Samsung and received information that sounds completely different. Galaxy Watch Active 2 should get the long-promised ECG functionality. But only in the third and fourth quarters, that is, by the end of the year.

If you want to trust this schedule or, given the many delays that have already occurred with the deployment of this feature, believe the original details of customer service, everyone must decide for himself at the moment. If you buy the Galaxy Watch Active 2, at least you should not do this because of the ECG function. And even with the Galaxy Watch 3, it is advisable to be careful about the functions promised for the future.

Galaxy Watch Active 2 ECG function approved in Korea

Samsung already promised last year that the Galaxy Watch Active 2 (from € 215 on Amazon) will receive one of the most exciting features of the Apple Watch Series 5 (from € 439 on Amazon) through a software update: an electrocardiogram. Of the promised release in the first quarter of 2020, nothing happened, as a result of which Samsung had to survive a crappy storm.

In a press release, the company announced that the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) has finally released functionality in their country so that nothing prevents software updates from activating this function. However, the new software will not be distributed through the Samsung Health app until the third quarter of 2020.

This makes South Korea the first and so far the only country that gave the green light to this feature – in most markets Apple Watch remains ahead of the rest. At least the ECG seems to be working properly. So there shouldn’t be a lot of barriers to release in the rest of the world.