Logan Strain April 6th, 2017
Samsung is slowly realizing its ambition to be a premier smartwatch and fitness tracker brand. Users of the Samsung Gear S3 and Samsung Gear Fit 2 already know that the South Korean company makes some of the best wearables on the market.
But to really get the most out of Samsung’s devices, you should master Samsung’s Fitness app: Samsung Health (formerly called Samsung S Health.) Here’s how you can use it to measure your stats, track your workouts, and get healthier.
Keep Track Of Your Vital Stats
Samsung Health has a robust collection of vital measurements. With the help of your smartwatch and your phone, it can keep track of four vitals: heart rate, SpO2, stress levels, and blood glucose levels.
Heart Rate
Samsung Health gives you three ways to measure your heart rate. You can measure it on your phone thanks to the Samsung’s smartphone sensors. You can measure it with your Gear S2, Gear S3, or Gear Fit though their optical sensors. Or, for maximum accuracy, you can measure it with a chest strap.
SpO2
SpO2 is a measure of your peripheral capillary oxygen saturation, which is used to estimate of the amount of oxygen in the blood. For healthy people, spO2 is usually around 94% or higher. For people with minor respiratory conditions, an spO2 of 90% or higher is common.
If you have a Samsung Galaxy 7 or Samsung Galaxy 7 Edge smartphone, you can measure spO2 by placing your finger the back sensor.
Stress
The Samsung Health stress vital measures the variations in between your heartbeats and your SpO2.
This takes a lot longer to measure than other vitals, so only take it when you have a minute or two to spare. After the measurements are taken, you can also input your subjective sense of your well-being.
Blood Glucose
Like the name implies, blood glucose is measurement of a kind of sugar, called glucose, in your blood. Unlike other vitals, this one must be inputted manually.
Set Goals And Track Data
Once you have a baseline of your vital stats, you’re ready to set daily fitness goals.
Active Time
Active Time simply measures how often you engage in any physical activity. This can include walking, running, or weightlifting. To help you squeeze more active time into your day, you can set your Samsung smartwatch to remind you to move after it records you being inactive for a particular period of time.
Food
You can log your meals, snacks, coffee consumption, and water consumption into Samsung Health. When you set up the app, it will automatically estimate a calorie goal based on your gender, height, weight, and activity level, but you can set your calorie goals to any level.
To log food, go to the calories menu and select a meal. Then enter the name of each item in that meal. Samsung Health has a huge database of foods, complete with extensive nutritional information.
Sleep
You can set your ideal bedtime and when you want to wake up each morning within the app.
Your Samsung smartwatch will automatically record how much shut-eye you get each night. But if your forget your watch on the charger, then you still have the option of recording it manually.
Track Workouts
Samsung Health tracks a ton of different workouts. It has conventional exercises, like running, hiking, and aerobics. But it also has less common ways to get your heart pumping, like hang gliding, hula-hooping, and windsurfing.
Tracking your workouts is simple: just pick your activity and press “Start.”
Once you’re done, it will give you a report that includes your duration, heart rate, and an estimate of calories burned. If your activity is running, cycling, walking, or hiking, it will also provide you with a GPS-created map of your route.
Workout Audio Guide
For running workouts, Samsung Health provides two audio guide options. Runners can listen to a virtual coach provide advice on how to improve workouts. They can also listen to their running stats, such as distance, speed, and pace, at predetermined intervals.
Automatic Workout Detection
By default, Samsung Health can automatically detect when you’re running and log that as a workout. You can turn this feature on or off in the “Settings” menu.
Programs
If you need a little more structure to your workouts, Samsung Health has a feature called “Programs.” To access it, scroll to the bottom of the app, and select “Manage Items.” Then select “Programs.”
You will see these four options:
Baby steps to 5K
This 10-week program is intended for people who are new to running and want to complete their very first 5K. Users run three times a week, gradually adding more speed and time each week.
Run 5K
This program is for novice runners who want to improve their stamina. It is also a 10-week program that requires you to run three times a week, but the time goals are slightly more ambitious.
First attempt at 10K
This program is for runners who can continuously run a 5K but want to up their game to a 10K.
Run 10K
This is an 8-week program designed to help runners improve their 10K time.
Samsung Health Dashboard
All of your stats and information are displayed on tiles on the Samsung Health home screen.
To rearrange the tiles, press and hold on the tile you want to move, and then move it to the preferred location.
By default, the tiles are arranged in a 3 x 3 grid. If you prefer larger tiles, you can change the dashboard to display a 2 x 2 grid by going to the “Manage Items” menu.
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