The body temperature sensor may not be ready

May 2, 2022 22:12 GMT  ·  By

The battle in the smartwatch field is pretty fierce right now, and while the Apple Watch is dominating the market, Samsung keeps investing in all kinds of innovations that sometimes make the Galaxy Watch look like a much more advanced option.

This year, for example, the South Korean company is expected to come up with a body temperature sensor on the Galaxy Watch 5, something that Apple has reportedly tried but failed to make happen.

The Galaxy Watch 5 is projected to launch in the summer, and of course, Samsung has remained completely tight-lipped on everything related to this device.

Samsung 0, Apple 1

But according to well-known Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the highly anticipated body temperature sensor might not make its way to the Galaxy Watch this year.

This is because just like Apple, Samsung is struggling to make this feature meet higher requirements, so it may not be ready by the time the Galaxy Watch sees the daylight.

Meanwhile, Kuo says Apple is in a more advanced stage with this sensor, so it could be released as part of the Apple Watch Series 8 in the fall.

“The challenge in implementing precise body temperature measurement is that skin temperature quickly varies depending on outside environments. A smartwatch can't support core temperature measurement in terms of hardware, so it needs an excellent algorithm to work together,” Kuo said.

“Samsung is facing this challenge as well. Unlike previous media reports, I think Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 in 2H22 might not support the body temperature measurement due to algorithm limitations.”

Time will tell if Kuo was right or not, but given we’re not very far from the moment the Galaxy Watch 5 is supposed to see the daylight, there’s a chance Samsung is running out of time to make this happen.