We’ve been hearing a bunch of rumors about a possible Samsung Galaxy Watch FE over the past few months. The idea is that this smartwatch will offer some premium features but at a lower price than a full-fledged Galaxy watch. Now it seems like the existence of that watch may have been accidentally confirmed by Samsung itself.
Samsung UK and Latin America both have live support pages for the low cost smartwatch under the model number “SM-R861” (via MySmartPrice). These pages are still up[ at the time of writing, though we expect that they may be removed once Samsung realizes what’s happened.
Not that it matters too much, because these pages are pretty devoid of detail. The FAQs themselves are very generic and relate to other Samsung wearables, which tells us absolutely nothing about what this mystery smartwatch might be. In fact, the only reason we know that the SM-R861 might be the Galaxy Watch FE is thanks to documents that appeared at the FCC last month.
Android Police notes that the product number is similar to those found on the Galaxy Watch 4 (the SM-R860), suggesting that there may be some similarities between the two smartwatches. That would certainly track with Samsung’s “Fan Edition” products having less impressive specs and features compared to the flagship.
There’s a lot to like about the Galaxy Watch 4 — even if it is a few years old. The watch had a slim design, body composition analytics, and was one of the first smartwatches to offer the revamped version of Wear OS. On top of that it was a lot more affordable than some of its predecessors, which is exactly what the FE range is supposed to emphasize.
We just hope that problematic things like inconsistent battery life have been fixed this time around. Samsung has had almost 3 years to fix that problem, after all. However, this is all just speculation, and the rumors haven’t been very forthcoming about what the Galaxy Watch FE might actually have to offer.
We’re expecting the Galaxy Watch FE to be announced at Galaxy Unpacked next month — which is rumored to be happening on July 10. Other devices apparently on the way include the Galaxy Watch S7, Galaxy Watch S7 Ultra, Galaxy Ring as well as the foldable Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6. Needless to say, it has the potential to be a very crowded event.
