Galaxy Watch 4 Update Brings New Gesture Control, Watch Faces & More

Samsung‘s latest smartwatches — Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic — are receiving a major new update. Currently rolling out to users in South Korea, the latest update brings a handful of new features to the two wearables. The rollout should soon reach Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic units in other countries as well. The new firmware version is R8xxXXU1DUJA, though it may vary slightly by country.

Galaxy Watch 4 picks up several new features with the latest update

To start with, Samsung is adding a bunch of new watch faces to the Galaxy Watch 4 series with the latest update. You can also now use GIFs as a My Photo+ watch face. The company is further promising new animations and improvements to features like Bitmoji, AR Emoji, and Cute Character. It is also adding backup and restore support for watch face settings and sequences.

Next up, we have improvements to heart rate monitoring and stress tracking. Samsung recently removed the Continuous Heart Rate graph in Samsung Health and replaced it with a new type of graph that shows the data in segments. Many users didn’t like it but it’s an intentional change from the company. Nonetheless, the Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic should now be able to measure your heart rate with improved accuracy.

The latest Samsung smartwatches are also gaining the ability to adjust fall detection sensitivity. If your wearable has been falsely detecting falls, you can now reduce the sensitivity for more accurate and effective results.

Samsung is further adding new gesture control to its latest smartwatches. You can now use gestures to launch specific apps or features. The Galaxy Watch 4 series previously supported gesture controls only for answering or rejecting calls and dismissing alarms. Last but not least, the new update adds a mute function to the Galaxy Watch 4 series that automatically syncs with the connected smartphone during calls. This update may also contain some bg fixes.

How to update your Samsung Galaxy Watch 4?

As said earlier, the latest update for the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 series is currently available in South Korea only (via Tizen Help). However, it should now only be a matter of time before the rollout expands to other territories. You should receive a notification from the Galaxy Wearable app on your connected smartphone once the OTA (over the air) update reaches your unit. You can also manually check for updates from the same app. The OTA package weighs in at over 477MB.