00:00I tested the brand new Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 against a smartwatch re-rated as our best ever,
00:05the Apple Watch Ultra 3. Here's how I got on. The Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 is brand new for
00:112026, and the comparisons between it and the Apple Watch Ultra 3 are pretty obvious at first
00:16glance. They've both got Ultra in the name for a start, and they're both AI-powered smartwatches
00:20geared at serious adventurers. Both are actually working dive computers, and both have an extra
00:25button added so they can be operated while wearing gloves. The Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2
00:30beats the Apple Watch in a few key areas, like screen brightness and battery life. But for my
00:35money, the Apple Watch has a more intuitive layout, and the design just kind of looks better. But I
00:40wanted to know which one was more accurate and measure their performance. A smartwatch's heart
00:44rate reading capabilities are the basis of almost all its health metrics, from monitoring your sleep
00:49to measuring effort during workouts, so their heart rate accuracy was definitely the thing to test.
00:54I chose to wear them both at the same time on a 30-minute run while wearing a Polar heart
00:58rate
00:58monitor, an electric chest-mounted monitor at the gold standard for heart rate accuracy. Here's how
01:03I got on. So I've just been out on my usual 30-minute testing route, protesting the Samsung Galaxy Watch
01:10Ultra 2 against the Apple Watch Ultra 3 on the other hand, and the Polar H10 heart rate monitor here
01:16for an accurate analysis of its heart rate accuracy. At the start of the run, I saw some drift.
01:20Samsung Watch was reading 135 BPM in comparison to the others, 155, 160, but it tightened up
01:26towards the end. Looking forward to diving into the stats, wanting back in the office and seeing
01:31how accurate it was. Back in the office, and you can see by the screen recordings here, there's a fair
01:35bit of difference in average heart rate between the Samsung Watch and the Polar heart rate monitor.
01:40Over 20 BPM, where I underestimated how hard I was working, whereas the Apple Watch is much closer
01:45to match. However, this is due to the first half of the run, in which the Samsung experienced significant
01:50drift, but after 15 minutes or so, the remainder of the run closely matched the data from the
01:55electrical Polar H10 monitor, which you can tell because the maximum heart rate reading
01:59from Samsung is much closer to the Polar's one, and the graphs match up really well.
02:03This is a known phenomenon when it comes to LED-based heart rate devices, but it's good to know
02:07that it tightens up and is accurate to the HRM after that initial calibration period. My Apple
02:12Watch globbed onto my heart rate reading straight away, whereas Samsung took a bit of time to catch
02:16up, but was accurate once it did so. I'd say the Apple Watch is the big winner here, but the
02:21Samsung's
02:21difference should end up being fairly negligible during longer workouts. More testing to come,
02:26so stay tuned and give us a comment on which one you think is better.
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