Does the Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 work with the iPhone?

By Jesse Hollington Published August 19, 2024

Samsung’s new Galaxy Watch 7 may not look like much of an upgrade over its predecessor at first glance, but it packs some significant improvements under the hood that could be enough to tip the scales for those who have been thinking about jumping into one of Samsung’s latest wearables.

The latest Galaxy Watch adopts a classy green as its standard finish but otherwise retains the same iconic rounded design with a bright and crisp edge-to-edge display and compatibility with a broad assortment of watch bands. However, on the inside, you’ll find a new five-core Exynos W1000 chip that promises to deliver three times the performance of the Galaxy Watch 6, upgraded health sensors, a more accurate GPS, and the first Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-authorized Sleep Apnea feature.

There’s enough here to make Apple fans take a closer look and consider what life may be like on the other side. However, can you use a Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 if you’re toting an iPhone?

Despite everything the Galaxy Watch 7 has to offer, there’s still no doubt that the Apple Watch is the best choice for most iPhone owners. That’s partly because it’s also the only smartwatch that’s fully compatible with the iPhone.

If you haven’t looked at Samsung’s smartwatches in a few years, you may remember the days when the company offered a Galaxy Watch app for iOS that delivered basic iPhone compatibility. This wasn’t nearly as tightly integrated as what iPhone users could do with an Apple Watch, and was limited to things like notifications and managing music playback. So, it’s probably not surprising that Samsung abandoned that after the 2020 Galaxy Watch 3. As such, the Galaxy Watch 7 does not work with the iPhone.

While a few of the more platform-agnostic manufacturers, such as Garmin, offer as much iOS compatibility as they can (and they’re fighting for Apple to give them more access), Samsung has essentially thrown in the towel. The Galaxy Watch has been an Android-only platform since 2021, and there’s no sign that’s going to change anytime soon, even as it arguably apes Apple in other ways.

As things stand today, we don’t see this as a meaningful loss for smartwatch owners. Unless Apple is forced to change its ways and play nice with Wear OS smartwatches, using anything other than an Apple Watch with an iPhone will be a frustrating experience. However, even if Apple embraced the other side, modern smartwatches still work best as an extension of your smartphone, and it stands to reason that Wear OS will always work better with Android than it will with iOS (and vice-versa with watchOS).

Using the Galaxy Watch 7 with a Samsung smartphone will provide the best experience since Samsung controls the software on both sides, and that’s even truer this year with Samsung’s new AI features.

However, One UI is still just a layer on top of Android and Wear OS, and what’s beneath that is the same core operating system you’ll find on any other Android phone or smartwatch. This means it’s possible to use the Galaxy Watch 7 with any Android smartphone as long as it meets a few basic requirements.

Your phone will need at least 1.5GB of memory with Android 11 or later and Google Mobile Services (GMS) installed. Those first two aren’t too high a bar, but the GMS requirement will leave Huawei phones out of the party.

You’ll also need the Samsung Health app. This is already preinstalled on any Samsung smartphone, but folks on other Android platforms can easily grab it from the Play Store. This will let you access nearly all of the Galaxy Watch 7 health monitoring and coaching features on any compatible Android smartphone.

What about Samsung’s newest Samsung Health features — Energy Score and Wellness Tips? Thankfully, you don’t need a Samsung phone to use those. So long as you have an Android phone running Android 10 or above and Samsung Health v6.27 or later, Energy Score should work without a problem. It’s a similar deal for Wellness Tips, which is also available for any modern Android phone with an updated Samsung Health app.

That said, you do need a Samsung phone to use the new Double Pinch Gestures, which allow you to control certain Galaxy Watch 7 functions by pinching your fingers. Whether that’s a loss or not is a matter of personal choice.

Lastly, it’s worth noting that while the Galaxy Watch 7 will work with just about any mainstream Android phone, you may find some occasional minor quirks and inconsistencies, especially when it comes to features that are more a part of One UI 6 than Android 14 since the One UI for Watch software has settings that only match up with One UI on the phone side. There are usually minor things like not having your Do Not Disturb status sync between devices or not being able to dismiss phone alarms from your watch, but they’re worth mentioning. As with the iPhone and the Apple Watch, the Galaxy Watch 7 works best with a Samsung Galaxy phone, but at least with Samsung, you have the option of using another Android phone.