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Photos of Samsung’s Galaxy Watch Active 2 leaked at the FCC

Photos of Samsung’s Galaxy Watch Active 2 leaked at the FCC

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The launch is imminent

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

We know the Note 10 launch at Samsung’s Unpacked event is imminent, but there is also growing evidence that the company will also launch a new smartwatch soon. And sure enough, that watch has just appeared on the FCC website where the agency posts approval requests, complete with images. Normally, companies request that images be hidden, but somebody didn’t cross a T or dot an i, apparently.

The Galaxy Watch Active 2 smartwatch is expected to be an iteration on the version that was released just this past March. One of our complaints with that watch was that although Samsung’s Tizen smartwatch software is optimized for use with a rotating bezel, the original Watch Active didn’t have one. This new one is rumored to have a touch-sensitive bezel around the screen, which should let you navigate by running your finger around the edge of the screen. It’s also expected to support ECG heart rate tracking and fall detection — though those features might not be available at launch.

SamMobile first posted photos of the watch some time ago, and we found these new images thanks to reporting from Droid Life. Here’s what the watch looks like, courtesy of those FCC documents. All companies are required to detail where their FCC label will go, but they’re now allowed to put that label in a device’s software settings. So what you’re looking at below are Samsung’s instructions for finding the label.

What you’re probably doing right now, gazing at these images, is trying to decide whether or not the bezel around the screen could accommodate a touch sensor. There’s no real way to tell from these photos, unfortunately. The Galaxy Watch Active 2 is expected to come in two sizes — 40mm and 44mm — and also have an option for an LTE version.

Presumably, Samsung plans to launch the watch alongside the Note 10 next month. Given the increasingly bad choices Android users have when it comes to smartwatches, this new iteration of Samsung’s Galaxy Watch has a solid chance of being the best thing available for them.