If you’ve got a Samsung smartphone, a Galaxy Watch is the perfect companion. And, like most smartwatches, they’re great for fitness tracking, counting plenty of metrics. Or at least that’s what they used to do. Samsung has seemingly decided it doesn’t quite make enough money off Galaxy Watch owners yet.
Samsung confirmed it is now “exploring” the idea of locking some of its Galaxy Watch health features behind a paywall, with a new premium subscription tier for the Samsung Health app.
This was confirmed during an interview with CNET, in what may or may not have been a slip up. While Samsung hasn’t officially launched anything yet, let’s not pretend we don’t see where this is going. The idea is that new Galaxy Watches will come with all the advanced coaching tools unlocked – lucky you if you’re planning to buy fresh. Everyone else will have to shell out extra.
Garmin did the exact same thing with its Connect+ service, and the backlash was biblical. You’d think companies might learn from that sort of community outrage, but clearly there’s something intoxicating about recurring revenue that angers users. What started as a premium feature or two quickly became a pattern where existing users found their once-free features getting gradually sealed behind a subscription. It’s the old slow-boil tactic.
While Samsung may decide not to move forwards with this subscription, I sadly don’t think that’ll be the case. I can see them drip feeding a few enticing metrics dressed up as “AI coaching” or “personalised insights” for extra. Even though they’re the same graphs you got for free last year with your Galaxy Watch.
There are plenty of fitness trackers with subscriptions, Whoop is a prime example. But there, you’re not shelling out for the hardware first. And, crucially, you know this is the case going into it – you’re not getting the rug pulled. We’ll let you know what Samsung decides to do.
