What you need to know
- The Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Astro Edition ships only in 47mm variant, featuring astronomy symbols on the rotating bezel.
- It retails for AED 1,999, or around $544, which gets you a free Galaxy Buds 2, fabric band, and a one-year Samsung Care+ free subscription.
- The astrolabe-inspired smartwatch also includes an exclusive watch face that shows the phases of the sun and moon on one side and a simple compass on the other.
Samsung has been making special editions of its Galaxy Watch line for a while now and typically releasing them in global markets. Its latest smartwatch, the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic, on the other hand, has a limited edition that’s only available in the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region.
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic Astro Edition is the company’s way of paying tribute to the region’s explorers and innovators who made significant contributions to the fields of astronomy and mathematics. Its design is inspired by an astrolabe, and it includes a compass on the dial as well as a solar tracker that allows you to track the movements of the sun and moon directly from your wrists.
For the uninitiated, astrolabes are like the GPS of the ancient world. They were used to navigate the night sky and tell the time. Just like how we use our smartphones to find our way around today, ancient astronomers used astrolabes to chart their course across the stars.
Since your beloved Android smartwatches and even the most basic phones these days can already perform these functions, the limited edition watch’s astronomy features are mostly aesthetic. You can still use it to tell the time and track your fitness, but it won’t help you navigate the night sky like an astrolabe would have centuries ago. Still, its rotating bezel is etched with constellations and celestial bodies, so it’s like having your own personal planetarium on your wrist.
The Galaxy Watch 6 Astro Edition has an exclusive watch face that shows the phases of the sun and moon on the left side and a simple compass on the right side. A crescent moon is also visible at the tip of the second hand. These features aren’t essential for everyone, but they’re a nice touch for astronomy enthusiasts.
Samsung said in a press release that the Astro Edition is “the first of several limited-edition collections of watches,” suggesting that it’s planning on launching more special editions of the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic for customers outside of MENA.
For the time being, the Galaxy Watch 6 Astro Edition is only available to purchase in Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the UAE. If you live in any of these countries, you can snag the watch for AED 1,999, or around $544, plus a free Galaxy Buds 2, fabric band, and a free one-year Samsung Care+ subscription.