This is interesting and probably helps samsung to improve VO2Max estimation in the future, however according to the announcement this is not what the cooperation is about.
It would be very interesting to read results of this cooperation.
Also, would be great to see how people use watches in the lab to get most accurate estimations (most probably, not how we do this).
Step counter works well (before and after the upgrade).
It looks like you have some very individual issue here: generally speaking, step counting can be impacted by your hands moving patterns and sometimes by your phone movements - by default your phone counts steps as well and results are merged (not summarized).
When exactly it asks you for GPS sync?
GPS sync during set up. Probably not ADHD friendly as I jiggle a lot and have 3 to 4 times more steps than my wife if we run errands through a few stores throughout a day.
I did not get what do you call a “set up” process.
You “jiggle”, your wife probably keep her hands on a trolley (hands are not waving, steps are not counted). This could easily be a reason for different steps counted. Plus, I would recommend to check how many of steps are counted by your watch and how many by your phone.