When trying to get fit, lose weight, or build better habits, having a data tracker app can remove a lot of the confusion. Samsung was aware of this when it released Samsung Health. You may recognize its former name, S Health, as the Samsung hub for better living. Here's how to use the Samsung Health app to get the best results.
Samsung Health Wants to Be Your Health Habit Hub
Samsung Health works as your hub for all things health related. Workouts, water intake, and hooking up with your running app to have all the information you want in a single place. There's a lot going on in this app, but the aim is to put you in control with data to back up plan.
When you walk the dog or take a run, your phone detects the motion and tracks it for you. The main page of the app lists the different activities you want to track, including daily steps, heart rate, and stress. You can personalize it to your liking to track things like water intake, caffeine, sleep, and weight management. There are also specific activity trackers for a variety of exercises, including running, cycling, and hiking.
Set up and Complete Your Profile
Your user profile in Samsung Health is how you keep track of your activities within the app. You can add your photo, nickname, and email for aesthetic purposes. However, it's the other information that really helps you out. Add height, weight, gender, age, and activity level to make Samsung Health your own.
Your profile includes rewards for continued activity, personal bests during workouts, weekly summaries of your activity routine, and a history of any programs you take part in. Essentially, your profile lets you take a long-form look at your progress, and you get small rewards for taking steps towards a different lifestyle.
Set Achievable Goals
After you decide what habits you want to change or track, the next thing is to set goals. There are weight management goals, fitness goals, and more.
Your profile needs to be set up beforehand since these goals are based on changing current habits.
After you set a goal, an indicator appears at the top of the main page inside the Samsung Health app. This indicator shows how much progress you've made towards that goal. When you tap the indicator, there's a dedicated breakdown of your daily activity, calories burned, and more information related to your goal. There's also a page showing long-term trends for tracking your progress, and rewards for attaining your goals.
Workout With Friends
Not everybody likes to work out alone. Having someone to compete against and cheer for can help you stay focused on your fitness goals. While Samsung Health is primarily concerned with your progress, the Together tab in the app is about community.
There are monthly community challenges you can participate in by being active, as well as the ability to find and add friends. There are also challenges for you and your friends so that you can work toward bigger and bigger goals.
Connect and Sync Data With Other Apps
It seems like there are dozens of apps dedicated to health and fitness. From specific apps for tracking blood pressure or weight to calorie counters, you probably have at least one other health app installed. Samsung Health partners with dozens of apps, allowing you to connect those apps and have the information from those apps sync with Samsung Health.
With this, you can track your meals with My Fitness Pal, for example, then see that information displayed in the hub of Samsung Health.
Which Phones Are Compatible With Samsung Health?
The Samsung Health app supports all Samsung smartphones going back to the Galaxy S3, as well as non-Samsung Android phones. Android 4.4 KitKat or later and a minimum of 1.5 GB of storage are required for the app to function properly. The app is also available for iPhones, and requires iOS 9.0 or later.
This app is typically pre-installed on new Samsung phones, but it can be downloaded from the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.