Irregular heart rhythm notifications are a popular feature on high-end smartwatches. By monitoring heart rhythm and other body functions, your smartwatch could give you an advance alert for atrial fibrillation (AFib). This type of arrhythmia could be a warning sign for a stroke, heart attack, or another serious cardiovascular complication.

Today, Samsung announced it has finally received FDA clearance for Galaxy Watch AFib tracking. That means that, in the future, your recent Samsung Galaxy Watch will be able to keep an eye on your cardiovascular health passively in the background, adding an extra layer of health safety.

Galaxy Watch AFib monitoring

The way this feature works is pretty simple. In the background, it monitors your body activity. When it detects something out of the ordinary, it will alert you and encourage you to perform a spot ECG check. Depending on the results of that ECG test, you might need to seek medical attention.

Although Samsung has earned FDA approval for this, it is not intended to be a substitute for a medical diagnosis nor a replacement for AFib-specific medical-grade tools. However, for many people, this could help spot a life-threatening problem, so why wouldn’t you want it?

So far, Samsung has only confirmed that AFib monitoring will come with the One UI 5 Watch update. This update will land first on “future Galaxy Watch devices later this year,” which is PR speak for the Galaxy Watch 6 series. After that rollout, you’ll see AFib monitoring support on older Galaxy Watches. Samsung didn’t clarify which ones, but we’d expect at least the Galaxy Watch 5 models and possibly the Galaxy Watch 4 series. We don’t expect older Galaxy Watches to get this feature.