[Kelly66]

Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro - 1 Year Ownership Review

The craze for Smart watches got to me as well and I decided to get the one which has the best battery life and good health features and also can coexist well with my Samsung phone. Got a steal deal in Amazon Renewed and I picked it up when I went to US in May'24. It came as a brand new piece with box and original Type-C wireless charger.


Detailed Specifications: (Link)

SAMSUNG Galaxy Watch 5 Pro 45mm Bluetooth Smartwatch w/Body, Health, Fitness and Sleep Tracker, 1.4" Super AMOLED, 450x450px 321ppi, Exynos W920 Dual-core 1.18GHz, 16GB storage, 1.5GB RAM, 590mAh Battery, MIL-STD-810H compliant, IP68 dust tight and water resistant (immersible up to 50m), Android Wear OS 5.0, One UI Watch 6.0, Bluetooth 5.2, Wi-Fi. Samsung has promised 4 years of OS/One UI upgrades so it should get up to One UI 8.0 in 2026.





What I Like:

• Best battery life - charge once every 3-4 days
• 4 years of Wear OS and One UI updates - another 2 updates left
• Health features galore - ECG, BP, Body composition, HR, Sleep, Stress, Energy, SPO2, VO2 Max
• Built in speaker is fairly loud - Caller cannot make out the difference
• Samsung Pay works great - POS person is always amazed
• Auto tracking of walks is very handy
• Auto brightness works like a charm
• Take & Make calls, Control music of phone via BT
• Samsung integration with Modes & Routines is seamless
• Daily backups are taken automatically
• Good touch sensitivity
• Magnetic strap is very convenient for easy wear & removal
• Plenty of free watch faces


What I don't:

• UI lags at times
• Wireless Type C charging cable takes about 1 hr 45 mins to fully charge with Samsung 25W charger and around 2 hr 30 min with others
• Reverse Wireless from phone is difficult with the stock strap and the curved back - forgot to take my charger on a tour and struggled
• Unpairing watch from phone and trying to pair again forces a hard reset. Fortunately backup came in handy
• Strap pin takes some effort to put back in place once removed - so not convenient for frequent removal. A push button interface like the Watch 7 Ultra would have been wonderful.


How it looks on my wrist:









Key Highlights:


• Raised bezel gives solid protection for the display made of sapphire crystal glass and the titanium frame is scratch resistant.





• Magnetic strap is very convenient to wear and remove.




• Samsung Pay works well with VISA & Mastercard but Rupay Credit card is not supported.


• I use Modes & Routines in my Samsung S21FE to switch watch faces automatically every one hour. Some of my favourite watch faces:




• Auto brightness is very useful under different lighting conditions:



• Remote Wifi feature allows you take calls and send texts even if watch us not connected to the phone while its on the same Wifi. Example, your phone is getting charged in the first floor and you don't want to miss a call. Otherwise, Watch Wifi is used only for software/app downloads.






• These tiles can be accessed while swiping right on the screen.



Google Assistant & Bixby are available. I use GA since it's more versatile.


Health settings:





Buttons & Gestures:




Current Apps in use:




Battery life is the main USP of this watch. Here are some screenshots:

5 days battery life: Power saving mode always on, HR every 10 min; Sleep tracking on; Stress measurement and SPO2 off




4.5 days battery life: Power saving mode on only at night, HR every 10 min; Sleep tracking on; Stress measurement and SPO2 off




3 Days Battery life: Power saving only at night, HR every 10 min, Continuous stress measurement; Sleep tracking and SPO2 on during sleep; Skin temp also on: (Note the steady increase in Samsung Health usage)




Health views:




Body Composition (I measure it once a month):




My Highest Energy Score: (HRV is useful to track):




My Best deep sleep: (Note: After the start of IPL my sleep score is ranging from 65-75)




My Best overall sleep:






BP:

BP measurement is via a side-loaded Samsung Health Monitor app since BP measurement is not approved in the US. We have to calibrate BP via a BP machine like OMRON once every month, else you can't use this feature. I have noticed a variation of around 4-6 mmHg (up or down) compared to OMRON. I would say BP measurement is just indicative and should not be taken as accurate but can be used as a good guideline.




Comparison with OMRON:








ECG report (I take it once a month):




Stress measurement has been updated with One UI 6.0 update and is quite useful to keep a check. It is measured only while idle and awake (during day and even night)




VO2 max works only when GPS signal is available so only while walking outdoors. Since I mostly walk indoors and keep GPS off always, I stopped after some initial measurements. In Feb'25 when I measured it again outdoors it had shot up to 41. Not sure how accurate this is.





Summary:

• Overall happy with this smart watch.
• After every UI update I do a hard reset after taking a backup to normalise performance and improve battery life
• Even though it is IP68 certified I never use it in the shower or during rains
• I always charge it to 100% from around 1-5%. Make full use of battery life.
• The only downside of buying a smart watch is that all my other watches are idling, especially the automatic luxury ones.


Thanks for reading!

Cheers!!

[Aditya]

Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro - 1 Year Ownership Review - Post moved to a new thread.

[Sach_511]

Samsung watches are ahead of Apple watches. I extensively used Samsung Pay during my Europe trip, as it's very safe not to take my purse out of my pocket in public places. However, since moving to the Apple ecosystem, I've faced endless frustration because Apple Pay does not work here in India. It seems Apple has such an ego that they don't want to follow the RBI's guidelines. I will switch back to a Samsung smartphone and watch during my next periodic change.

[VW2010]

Samsung watches are ahead of Apple watches.

Maybe in one or two smart functional areas. As a health device, an Apple Watch is ahead of any other smartwatch.

You can use this youtube page for some comparison on the actual usefulness of the health features across all smart devices.

[veyron_head]

Great review. The most premium gadgets comparable to apple in tha android ecosystem are samsung. And they work pretty well. I have been a samsung man for over a decade now (phone, watch, AC, Fridge,ear buds (which i changed to apple airpods and been happy with it)).

I use the regular watch 5 (not the pro variant). There are two things that annoy me to no end:

a.) The so called calibration for BP expires every 28 days. Which means you have to use a regular bp monitor to calibrate watch again. Since i check my BP like once in a month, i stare at the 'watch calibration expired' screen every time i want to check my BP. Might as well use the regular BP monitor instead of calibrating the watch.

b.) Samsung Pay is excellent. It has way less failure transactions than gpay. But then if you have to use it in the watch you have to set up a PIN for the watch itself. Now what this does is, unless you enter then PIN you cant fully see even email notifications. It just says i have a new email but doesnt even show the sender. In the absence of the PIN, I can see the sender ,subject and just tap to see the full email. I really dont know why shouldnt the PIN be set for samsung pay alone and not for the watch itself.