Galaxy Watch Active 2: Nearly two months on, the ECG-tracking function has yet to reach users in various markets

The Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 was launched alongside references to a new ECG sensor that would offer heart-rate tracking to a clinical degree, as with some generations of the Apple Watch series. However, the OEM was obliged to leave this potentially welcome feature disabled when it first went on sale, due to the need to certify the functions of the tech in question with medical regulators and authorities. 

This took an arguably long time: the Watch Active 2 launched in August 2019, and it took until May 2020 for it to become recognized by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in Samsung's native South Korea as an ECG device.

Since then, it seems it has failed to achieve the same validation in some other markets. In response to reader feedback, our German-language news team contacted the company's German and Austrian divisions in relation to the availability of the same function to users in those countries.

The responses included references to the My BP Lab app, a third-party app made by the research group Sage Bioworks that can indeed be used to track cardiac data. However, according to Samsung Germany, it only works "in other countries" that include the UK, US and Canada at this point.

The OEM's Austrian representatives, on the other hand, indicated that Galaxy Watch Active 2 units in that country would receive the ECG-activating update in the third or fourth quarter of 2020.

Should this be the case, it may be aggravating indeed for buyers that will get this feature after their existing watch's successor does. It is currently projected to launch with both blood pressure- and cardiogram-tracking options switched on out of the box.