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.