Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 at its Galaxy Unpacked event on July 22, 2026, alongside the Galaxy Watch9, the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, Galaxy Z Fold8, and Galaxy Z Flip8 (Engadget, Samsung Newsroom). The second-generation Ultra is 12 percent thinner than its predecessor. Samsung says it achieved this by reworking the watch's internal layout rather than shrinking the battery. In fact, the battery grew from 590mAh in the first-generation Ultra to 800mAh in the Ultra 2, a roughly 36 percent increase. Samsung claims that translates to 60 hours of battery life with the Always On Display enabled.

The 47mm case uses a shock-resistant titanium build and carries an IP69K rating, which means complete dust protection and the ability to withstand high-pressure, high-temperature water jets. Water resistance is rated at 10 ATM, meaning the watch can be submerged to 100 meters (328 feet). Samsung validated this by testing in 5 percent salt water and chlorinated water. The watch also obtained EN13319 dive compliance certification, the European standard for recreational diving instruments. On-watch dive tracking covers real-time depth, time, and water temperature. A dedicated Ultra 2 Diving app, arriving later this year, will add ascent and descent speed plus safe dive limits to the on-screen data.

The display is a 1.52-inch Super AMOLED panel. Storage comes in at 64GB with 2GB of RAM. The Ultra 2 is powered by the Snapdragon Wear Elite Platform, a chipset that also enables on-device AI capabilities Samsung is building into the Wear OS experience. Samsung teased this AI angle the week before Unpacked with a July 14 newsroom post titled "Coming Soon: A New AI-Powered Health Companion on Your Wrist," and the Unpacked invitation itself, published July 8, carried the tagline "A New Shape Unfolds" (Samsung Newsroom).

Pre-orders are live in the US in Titanium Silver and Titanium Gray at $700, with general availability starting August 7 (Engadget).

The engineering tension here is worth pulling apart. Making a rugged watch 12 percent slimmer while simultaneously growing the battery by roughly a third is not straightforward. The first-generation Ultra was already a thick, purpose-built device, and carving an eighth off its profile while increasing the power budget means the internal layout, heat management, and component stacking all had to change. Samsung's statement that this was achieved through re-engineering internal components is vague, but the outcome is concrete: a larger battery in a thinner package.

The dive certification pushes the Ultra 2 into a niche that most smartwatches do not seriously address. EN13319 compliance is a genuine technical standard, not a marketing badge, and the planned Diving app with ascent and descent rate plus safe-limit calculations suggests Samsung is positioning this device as a legitimate backup dive instrument. Whether the diving community treats a Wear OS device as trustworthy enough to rely on at depth is a separate question, and one that will take time and independent testing to answer.

The Snapdragon Wear Elite Platform is the other element worth noting. Qualcomm's wearable chips have historically been a bottleneck for Android smartwatches, particularly around display efficiency and on-device AI processing. Samsung's emphasis on AI capabilities enabled by the chipset suggests the Ultra 2 will push more processing on the watch itself rather than relying on a paired phone. The 800mAh battery and 60-hour Always On Display claim will be the real-world test of whether that silicon delivers genuine efficiency gains or simply draws more power.

At $700, the Ultra 2 sits in the same pricing territory as the first-generation model and well above mainstream Wear OS watches. The buyer is paying for the titanium build, the dive certification, the larger battery, and whatever on-device AI features Samsung ships. The August 7 availability date gives Samsung roughly two weeks of pre-order momentum before the device reaches store shelves.