Samsung Electronics today introduced the new Samsung Galaxy Watch, a smartwatch that brings the best of the Samsung's Galaxy ecosystem with long-lasting battery life, LTE connectivity, wellness capabilities and a personalized design.

Galaxy Watch helps users accomplish more with new stress and sleep monitoring capabilities, in addition to offering a line up of style options including three new watch faces in Silver, Midnight Black and Rose Gold, and new customizable watch band colors.

Galaxy Watch's improved battery life of up to 80+1 hours eliminates the need for daily charging. With a longer battery life, untethering from their smartphone is easier with Galaxy Watch's LTE connectivity - across 30+ carriers and 15+ countries - for a standalone experience across devices through messaging, calls, mapping and music. Users can also start and end their day with morning and evening briefings to help stay on top of reminders, weather and their latest schedule.

Designed with wellness in mind, Galaxy Watch offers a holistic health experience with its new stress management tracker, which automatically detects high levels of stress and offers breathing exercises to help keep users centered and focused. In addition, a new advanced sleep tracker monitors all levels of sleep, including REM cycles, to help users adjust sleeping habits and get the rest they need to take on their day.

With sleep and stress under control, Galaxy Watch also helps users achieve other health and wellness goals, including fitness. Galaxy Watch adds 21 new indoor exercises, tracking a total of 39 workouts that allow consumers to customize and change up their routines. Because balanced nutrition is as important as exercise, Galaxy Watch makes it easier than ever with calorie tracking and personalized alerts. In addition, users can stay on track of their meals using Bixby Vision on their Galaxy device. To take a photo of each meal and instantly log nutritional information in Samsung Health and on Galaxy Watch for better calorie management.

Galaxy Watch caters to more sizes and styles with a silver, 46mm version and 42mm option in black or rose gold. Users can customize Galaxy Watch even more with a selection of watch faces and straps including options from Braloba, a manufacturer of high quality watch straps. Galaxy Watch carries the legacy of Samsung' smartwatches with its trademark circular, rotating bezel while embracing the digital look with Always On Display, in addition to improved usability. For the first time, Galaxy Watch features analog watch ticks and hourly chimes, and a depth effect that casts shadows defining every detail on the watch face for a traditional look and feel. In addition, Galaxy Watch' certified military-level durability with Corning Gorilla Glass DX+ and water resistance with a 5 ATM rating allows for long-lasting use, no matter the environment.

Galaxy Watch brings users all the benefits from the Galaxy Ecosystem with SmartThings, Samsung Health, Samsung Flow, Samsung Knox, Samsung Pay, Bixby and with partnerships like Spotify and Under Armour. Access and control devices on Galaxy Watch with SmartThings -all at the touch of a wrist -from turning on the lights and TV in the morning to adjusting the temperature before bed. Samsung makes music and multimedia control even easier on Galaxy Watch with Spotify allowing users to listen to songs offline or without a smartphone with Spotify Offline mode in addition to keeping information secure with Samsung Knox and easily unlocking PCs or tablets using Samsung Flow.

Galaxy Watch will be available starting in the U.S. on August 24, 2018, at select carriers and retail locations, in Korea on August 31, 2018, and in additional select markets on September 14, 2018.

Glimpse on Bixby-powered AI speaker, Galaxy Home

Samsung also on Friday announced its first artificial-intelligence speaker, the Galaxy Home, in a surprise move during the showcase event of the new Galaxy Note 9 smartphone.

The black-colored Galaxy Home has three legs and is equipped with the new version of Samsung's voice-recognition system Bixby.

Samsung said the Galaxy Home comes with the surround-sound system, and is capable of recognizing distant voices with its eight microphones.

The company did not provided detailed specifications, along with the release date, but claimed it will show more of the speaker in the developer's conference slated for November.

Samsung also demonstrated how the Bixby system evolved to handle more complicated tasks. During the showcase event, the voice-recognition system provided information on nearby restaurants and helped making reservations.

The firm said that the new generation of Bixby will be more proficient at processing natural language and predicting users' needs, noting that the Galaxy Note 9 will be the first device to use the upgraded version of Bixby.

During the event, Samsung gave demonstrations of the updated Bixby.

For example, when asked about "what concerts are happening in Brooklyn over Labor Day weekend?" Bixby listed nearby events.

Bixby also recommends things based on its user's individual preferences. When it was asked to find a new restaurant, Bixby showed possible options based on the type of restaurants where the user has made reservations in the past.

During the demonstration, Bixby brought up a list of French restaurants as the demonstrator tends to prefer to eat at French restaurants. With Bixby, users can also call for Uber rides.

The Korean tech giant also announced its partnership with popular music streaming service, Spotify. Spotify will be the default music provider of the Galaxy Home.

Samsung also explained that Spotify and Samsung accounts will be able to be linked for smart home integration through Samsung's SmartThings app that controls devices.