Samsung has started sending its upgraded Sleep Apnea feature to the Galaxy Ring, the Galaxy Watch 9 and the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2, SamMobile reported on Tuesday. It arrives through the Samsung Health Monitor app. Samsung announced the upgrade last week, and this is the week it actually shows up on people's wrists and fingers.
The first version gave you a basic risk assessment and stopped there. The new one goes further. It reads your sleep vitals in more depth and tells you how often your breathing was disrupted, not just whether there's a risk. That's a more useful thing to bring to a doctor.
It's also cleared. Samsung has approval from the US FDA and from South Korea's Ministry of Food and Drug Safety for the upgraded feature. The original version was the first of its kind to get FDA De Novo authorization.
The ring is the bigger news here. Samsung says this makes it the first company to bring sleep apnea risk detection to a smart ring. Plenty of people won't sleep in a watch. A ring is far easier to forget you're wearing, and if you own both, you can pick whichever one you find more comfortable at night.
The bar to get a result is low. It needs two nights of sleep data within a 10-day window, and you have to be 18 or older.
Right now it works on watches running Wear OS 7.0 and One UI 9.0 Watch, which is the Galaxy Watch 9 and Watch Ultra 2, plus the Galaxy Ring. The Galaxy Watch 7, Watch 8, Watch 8 Classic and both Galaxy Watch Ultra models from 2024 and 2025 get it in a later software update. Samsung hasn't given a date for that.
If you've got a Galaxy Ring, open Samsung Health Monitor and look for the update this week. If you're on a Watch 7 or Watch 8, it's coming, just not yet. Two nights of wear is all it asks before you have something specific to show a doctor.