The news: Samsung’s just released Galaxy Watch 8 series comes equipped with new health and wellness features for sleep, stress, and activity.

• A new bedtime guidance feature measures sleep-wake cycles and sleep latency for three straight nights to suggest the optimal time to go to bed and wake up refreshed.
• A vascular load tool helps monitor stress levels on the user’s vascular system during sleep.
• And a new antioxidant index measures the antioxidant levels through a person’s skin when a user presses down on a sensor.

Zooming out: Samsung has been pushing further into the health wearables space through added tracking features, new product launches, and even a recent company acquisition.

• Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 7 received FDA clearance for a sleep apnea detection capability last year, the first of its kind to get regulatory approval.
• The company also released its first smart ring in 2024, equipped with health-tracking features for sleep, activity, and heart-rate monitoring.
• Samsung this week acquired Xealth, a digital health platform that healthcare providers use to integrate patient data from various systems into a consolidated interface. That could mean a doctor using health data generated by the Galaxy Watch in conjunction with a patient’s clinical records for medical care purposes.