Will the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 be launched at Unpacked?

Will a surprise reveal see the new smartwatch land on 1 February?

Samsung Galaxy Watch 5
(Image credit: Samsung)

Samsung’s next big product launch event takes place in just a few days' time, on 1 February. To be held online, the event is expected to feature a trio of new Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 Ultra smartphones.

This is Samsung’s first Unpacked event of 2023 and it comes a year after the company announced its Galaxy S22 smartphone family and Galaxy Tab S8 tablet.

No smartwatches were revealed at the 2022 event. Instead, those came later when the Galaxy Watch 5 and Watch 5 Pro landed in August, a year after the fourth-generation Galaxy Watch.

This leads us to think that, while it isn't entirely impossible that a new smartwatch will arrive on 1 February, it’s unlikely that the Galaxy Watch 6 is ready just yet. Instead, we expect to see that, and potentially a Galaxy Watch 6 Pro too, arrive in August.

That doesn’t rule out a different model of Samsung smartwatch featuring at the next Unpacked event. Samsung might announce a cheaper, simpler model to rival the Apple Watch SE, or perhaps a new fitness tracker like those from Google-owned Fitbit.

Much more likely for the 1 February event is a family of Galaxy S23 smartphones. We’re also expecting to see a new laptop, potentially called the Galaxy Book 3, and an Ultra model that could go up against Apple’s new M2-powered MacBook Pro, announced this month.

There could also be a successor to the Galaxy Tab S8 tablet that arrived a year ago, but Samsung doesn’t tend to roll out new tablets on an annual cycle, so we might be premature with that prediction.

It also seems unlikely that Samsung will announce a new model of its Galaxy Buds Pro earphones just yet, given the current generation launched recently. A replacement for the two-year-old Galaxy Buds 2 could be waiting in the wings, but rumours are thin on the ground.

Alistair Charlton

Alistair is a freelance automotive and technology journalist. He has bylines on esteemed sites such as the BBC, Forbes, TechRadar, and of best of all, T3, where he covers topics ranging from classic cars and men's lifestyle, to smart home technology, phones, electric cars, autonomy, Swiss watches, and much more besides. He is an experienced journalist, writing news, features, interviews and product reviews. If that didn't make him busy enough, he is also the co-host of the AutoChat podcast.