Stress testing takes time

New to the Galaxy Watch is a stress management feature that tries to detect those moments when you're freaking out and offers breathing exercises to help you chill. The feature itself is fairly straightforward: the first few times you check your stress levels (though a handy widget that's enabled by default), the Watch sets up a baseline heart rate that it checks against in the future. Needless to say, you should be pretty relaxed when you first use the feature. The thing is, it seems to take a while for the Watch to figure out what your heart is doing when you're really stressed, so you'll have to wait at least a few for any real insight to kick in.

I logged my first stress test just after receiving the Watch, and my levels were all green — fitting, since I wasn't particularly worried about anything. The screen displayed the word "neutral" just to confirm that everything was alright. Shortly after that, though, Samsung put a group of gathered journalists through an intense workout and asked us to check our stress levels again. That time, the stress meter's digital needle was way in the red, and I would've expected the Watch to flag the situation in some way. It didn't. I can't be too harsh on this feature since it probably needs more time to really get acquainted with my resting heart rate but if there were ever a time to offer calming breathing exercises, that was it.

My testing isn't over yet, but I'm pleased to see Samsung trying to make its wearables a little more thoughtful. Even with Apple's own updated Watch on the horizon, the Galaxy Watch seems like a strong option for Samsung fans and people waiting for Google to do new things with Wear OS. Things could change over the next few days, though — you'll just have to stay tuned.