Samsung Unveils Galaxy Time Watch Faces With Real-Time Solar System Planet Data

March 31 saw the release by Samsung of new watch faces for its Galaxy Watch devices, which display the time on various solar system planets. These watch faces, which the South Korean tech giant dubbed Galaxy Time, were created in association with the European Space Agency (ESA). In total, there are eight watch faces, which correspond to the eight planets. These watch faces provide additional pertinent information about the planets in addition to the current time.

Samsung Electronics Germany Vice President of Marketing Mario Winter said, "In this project, "Galaxy" really says it all," while announcing the new watch faces in a post on its German newsroom. "Our watch face, which we created in collaboration with ESA, one of the biggest space travel partners, gives Samsung Galaxy users a fresh and original approach to discover our solar system." Through Samsung developers' access to scientific data from ESA, Galaxy Time users will be able to easily explore beyond Earth and into the planetary neighborhood using their Samsung Galaxy Watch.

Different planets in the solar system revolve around the Sun, which is their parent star, and do so at different speeds relative to Earth, according to Melanie Heil, an ESA scientist. Consequently, the seven other planets—Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune—have completely different day-to-day cycles and hour-to-minute patterns than Earth.

Samsung used information from ESA about the eight planets' orbits and rates of rotation around the Sun to create the Galaxy Time watch faces. Users will see these planets' representation of time in relation to Earth's time rather than necessarily the exact time of these planets. In addition to time, the faces reveal fascinating details about the solar system, like the separation between Earth and neighboring planets, the quantity of moons on each planet, their precise location every second, and the planetary seasons.

Galaxy Time's development was spearheaded by the Berlin-based creative brand consultancy Metadesign, while Samsung disclosed that the watch face's concept originated with the German creative agency Leo Burnett. Any Galaxy Watch model running Wear OS—that is, models 4 and up—can use these watch faces.