How serious is Samsung about Samsung health?

[joeheb]

Hi folks, hi samsung (if anybody is reading),

I am at the point of getting a new mobile and a new smartwatch / fitness tracker. I'd love to buy a S8 in combination with a gear sport (or gear fit 2 pro). My main focus is sports / health tracking like many others. But after reading reviews and community feedback more and more I am not really willed to go this way, although I'd really love to. I love the idea, how samsung is trying to protect your health data with knox and also think that hardwarewise, they have outstanding products, but here are some dealbreakers for me.

1. I can not believe that there is no way of tracking HIIT / Crossfit / Gym /calisthenics workouts in a good way. All the proposed workarounds (Use "other", Pilates, eliptical, ...) are crap for serious tracking. HIIT/crossfit/bodyweight is a huge trend in the fitness world and it can not be, that the only way are crappy workarounds.

2. How can it be, that there are so many weight scales on the "supported" list, but none of them is able to sync bodyfat / musclemass, whatever... As far as I read, the only thing which is synced is bodyweight and BMI (wohoo...).

3. There is no thing like a roadmap about what will happen in the future. Will there be an update for the Fit 2 to Tizen 3.0? Which features are going to be added in the future? Which devices will be supported? ...?

4. As far as I see, Samsung is ignoring the community. From time to time a Samsung rep appears, answers one question, and then disappears again.

5. If I look at apple for example, they seem to push the whole health thing forward with big steps. I really do not want to buy apple products, but for a health minded guy, it seems to be the way to go.

So the big question ist, how serious is Samsung about their own health platform. For me it seems like a "me too" product which is developed "half hearted" , although they were far ahead with their platform a couple of years ago and although there products and apps have a outstanding potential. But will it be used?

Are there other folks thinking like me? I'm looking forward for any feedback. Thanks.

Joe

[AntS]

Hello and welcome @joeheb. :robothappy:

Always happy to feed back suggestions from you guys as regards improvements to stuff - although I'm unable to guarantee they'll be implemented. Suggestions or ideas posted on here can sometimes be lost in the general chat/troubleshooting noise though, so the best place for stuff like that for mobiles/tablets/wearables tends to be the Suggestions and Ideas thread. However, I've pitched your suggestions for improvements to the Samsung Health app at our software guys, and I'll let you know how it goes.

Can't comment too much on roadmaps for the future (or software updates), as the various development teams at Samsung and their partners like to keep their cards very close to their chests - and I strongly suspect that every day there's always someone in them who comes in having being hit by the muse (or had waaaaay too much coffee and sweets...) and comes out with an idea that's equal parts madness and genius, or takes an existing project in a totally unexpected direction. A selection of marketing/press bumph on the health & fitness aspect of mobile/wearable products from over the past year from  here, here, here and here give a little insight in the direction it has been moving in, and hopefully show a commitment to that aspect though.

Also, just a note to say that us Samsung peeps are very much around here (well, I pretty much am anyway!). We primarily made this place for you guys to share experiences, expertise and opinions on all things Samsung with one another, so we tend to be more in the background letting you folks talk and encouraging good ideas and advice (along with the usual stuff you'd expect from moderating folks).

[Maxe]

I have a withings scale and the weight information is synced through the app myfitnesspal to Samsung Health. That works pretty OK. Maybe that is a solution for you? 

[joeheb]

Hi @AntS,

thanks for the great and extensive feedback. It's nice to hear, that somebody at samsung listens to the feedback people are giving. I understand that this place is primarily made for the community, but I think if people try to get feedback it would be nice if they recognize that somebody is listening (as in my case). I found a lot of threads (also in the US community), where people are complaining about functions (especially the workout tracking part) on 5-10 pages and nobody from samsung seems to listen or respond.  There seem to be many people who'd love to lovethe gear product line, but are pushed away to other companies like fitbit / garmin / ... because of lacking features.

The newsroom is also pretty nice, but the guys in the marketing maybe could improve in how to get found in google 🙂 At least I didn't find any of the news while trying to figure out whats going on the the samsung health business. Big thanks for providing these links. I like the idea of "Designing a Smartwatch for the Everyday Athlete" but I think Samsung has still its way to go there. For people who want to track their workout in the gym for example, there is no acceptable way to do so. The "other" workout totally messes up the calories.  the really strange part is, that there are options in Samsung Health like circle-training, weight lifting, ... which can not be chosen in the gear product line. I know that there are mutiple entries for specific excercises like pushups, pullups, situps, squats in the gear, but needing to chose a specific excercise each time during a crossfit workout totally messes up the idea of HIIT 🙂

The really sad part is, that in my eyes, those features shouldn't be such a big deal to implement, especially for a company like Samsung.

Anyway, thanks for your great answer.

@Maxe, is this just weight getting synced, or also the whole bodyfat, musclemass, ... part?

Cheers

Joe

[Maxe]

Glad to be of help. I checked but it only synced weight and no extensive info like fat %. Too bad because myfitnesspal does have the info synced from the nokia/withings app.

[JK2017]

Out of interest in what way would you want to track a HIIT session? Even if you don't rate Samsungs health app wouldn't Garmin be a better fit that Apple??

If you are serious about your sport/fitness I wouldn't worry about inputing BF or musclemass values in any divice. Without proper measurement the values would be next to useless. Most top s&C don't measure BF anymore unless it is important to the end goal i.e standing on stage at 5%. 

[joeheb]

Well, it would be just enough to have an approx. estimate of burned calories. But if you chose "other workout" you get something lik 200kcal instead of 700kcal for a crossfit workout.

And yes, maybe you are right about Garmin would be a better fit, although apple  is integrating more and more HIIT stuff into apple watch / health. In general I'd love to have one ecosystem where I can track the whole health / fitness stuff and not multiple. If the whole life/health tracking is really neccessary is  another discussion where everybody has to find his own answer for.

And regarding the BF/muscle mass part: Samsung is "supporting" Tanita and other brands, which are well known for their BF-scales, so why not supprot the whole thing? For people who decide to level up their life it can be very motivating to see progress. Especially because often you get in better shape without noticing it on the scale, because muscle is much heavier than fat.

Just my 2 cents.

Joe

Edit: The strangest part is, that there are categories for HIIT and weight training in Samsung health which can not be started on the watch.

[JK2017]

"Especially because often you get in better shape without noticing it on the scale, because muscle is much heavier than fat."  Unless you are already at a low bf it will show on the scale. But that is whole different discussion.

But I get your point. I just feel Samasung (and the others) all put far to much emphasis on health tracking elements of these watches. They just aren't accurate at calculating calories burned. But Samsung definitely is behind in the app/functionality of S Health. 

[joeheb]

Hi again,

I'm still in the process of evaluating multiple devices. While watching a review of the gear sport, I saw one thing (here in this video at 06:30 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WmS3EP89s4)). The first categorie says something like "circuit training for the whole body". In the other video of the same guy, this categorie was not there, but maybe it came with an update? I was in a local store to look at the unit, but the category was also missing. Is somebody out there who can confirm, that this category made it into the watch? That would be awesome...

Thanks

[Combat72]

Hi I do agree with you I cannot understand why I cannot choose my own activities like arobics and weight training plus dancing and many more that are on the app but cannot get on the phone so how am I surpose to use them if I have not got my phone especially in the pool for aqua arobics???

Trying to get help for gear is pritty well impossible !!!!

Combat72