Samsung is making a major play in the digital health space with new features revealed for its upcoming Galaxy Watch 8 and plans for a central hub where users can share health data directly with their doctors.

Announced ahead of the expected July Unpacked event, the Galaxy Watch 8 will ship with several advanced wellness tools via the new One UI 8 update.

These include Vascular Load tracking (measuring arterial stress during sleep), a Running Coach with customised race training plans, Antioxidant Index monitoring via BioActive sensors, and enhanced Bedtime Guidance using behavioural data. Some features will also roll out to recent Watch models via software updates.

But the bigger picture is Samsung’s move to bridge the gap between wearables and clinical care.

The company is developing a health data sharing hub designed to send watch-collected metrics directly to medical professionals between visits.

Samsung Health executive Dr. Hon Pak said this aims to simplify patient-doctor interactions and reduce fragmentation across apps and devices.

“There’s a responsibility and a potential for bringing the experience into an ecosystem,” Pak said in an interview with Bloomberg, highlighting Samsung’s 68 million active health platform users globally.

The shift mirrors broader industry trends.

With Apple, Garmin, and Google expanding into advanced health tracking, Samsung is doubling down not just on wearables, but on becoming part of users’ long-term healthcare routines.

Future devices could include more health sensors, even in earbuds, and ambitions remain high with cuffless blood pressure and non-invasive glucose monitoring still in the pipeline.