Old Galaxy Watch Becomes $300 Sleep Tracker as Samsung Health Merges 2 Devices

3 articles · Updated · MUO - MakeUseOf · May 16

An unused Galaxy Watch 4 or 5 can be turned into a dedicated bedside sleep tracker, letting owners keep a newer Watch 8 or Ultra charged and scratch-free overnight.
30 minutes of morning charging is enough for the old watch’s heart-rate, SpO2 and accelerometer sensors to log sleep, while Samsung Health combines nighttime data from the old watch with daytime data from the new one.
Three weeks of nightly use can build a baseline that makes shifts in resting heart rate, deep sleep and blood-oxygen trends easier to spot, with weekly and monthly graphs shown in the phone app.
Five minutes of setup covers the basics: disable notifications, enable continuous heart-rate measurement, turn on blood-oxygen tracking and snore detection, and place a phone on the nightstand for snoring data.
Even after roughly 4 years of software support ends, the report says older Galaxy Watch models should still have several years of core sleep-tracking use left.

Is repurposing an old watch a smart health choice, or a major compromise on data accuracy and personal security?

Your 'free' sleep tracker requires daily charging. Is this convenience trade-off worth it compared to modern dedicated health rings?

Samsung now links your sleep data to medical records. Who really owns and benefits from your most personal health information?