What is Samsung Health? Features, compatibility, and more

Samsung Health gives users the full picture. The fitness app lets you set goals, see stats, track steps, and so much more. It’s one of the Galaxy Watch apps most central to users’ experiences. Plus, it’s accessible across screens of every size, from your wrist (and not just Samsung smartwatches) to your phone to your smart TV. Find out everything available in the app and see what sets it apart.

What is Samsung Health?

Samsung Health is a health and fitness app that encourages users to stay active. Available on Android and iOS phones, the app tracks activity data with significant health impacts, helping you gain insight into your well-being. It is also the go-to fitness app for Samsung wearables. 

The Samsung Health app isn’t necessarily the most complex or data-heavy app available, but it’s a solid platform for maintaining a healthy lifestyle. It manages everything from stress and sleep tracking to food and fitness goals and organizes all of your data on an intuitive interface. It also offers a well of resources, including fitness coaches, mindfulness exercises, and a community of like-minded users.

What does Samsung Health track?

Samsung Health tracks a lot of the basics. It is a catch-all for users’ most important data and a great tool for managing your overall health. Users can record workouts plus track steps, active minutes, heart rate, and sleep. Depending on your device, Samsung Health can automatically track your sleep, or you can manually add sleep data. Some compatible fitness trackers and other devices can even track SpO2 levels, snoring, and ambient noise levels while you sleep.

If you own a Galaxy Watch 4, 5, or 6 series smartwatch, Samsung also offers Sleep Coaching. Within the Samsung Health app, the company analyzes your sleep patterns using data recorded by your compatible watch. After about a week, it assigns you a sleep animal that represents your habits. Based on your results, the app provides a multi-week coaching program to help you optimize your shut-eye.

The app can also help you track weight, water intake, and calories. The Samsung Health app also helps users keep tabs on their ticker with heart rate tracking, stress data, and, depending on the device, blood glucose levels, blood pressure, and blood oxygen. Last but not least, the app will also track women’s health data, including cycles and symptoms.

Samsung Health profile and navigating the app

You can sign in to Samsung Health with your Samsung account. If you don’t have a Samsung account, download the app, tap Create account, and fill out the necessary details. 

Once you’re signed in, there are four main tabs to navigate: Home, Together, Fitness, and My Page.

• Home: This tab is your home base within the Samsung Health app. It’s where you can set and track goals and view your current health metrics. Scroll the Home tab to review or manually add data, including weight, periods, or food and water intake. 
• Together: The Together tab is where you can enter challenges and compare your data to others. You can also invite and connect with others to keep friends motivated on their health journeys. 
• Fitness: Tap on the Fitness tab to jump into a 15-minute workout video, listen to a sleep story, or read up on PMS. This tab houses an extensive library of exercise and wellness resources, including workout programs, videos, content from Samsung Health TV partners, and tools for mindfulness and women’s health. 
• My page: This tab is where you can edit your Samsung Health app profile. Add your gender, height, weight, and birth date to calculate important values like calories burned and heart rate ranges. You can also set your typical daily activity level on a scale of one to four. Beyond your basic profile, the My Page tab provides big-picture data like personal bests, earned badges, challenges, and weekly summaries.

You can access the app’s overflow menu from any of the tabs above by tapping the three horizontal dots in the top right corner of your screen. This menu includes four options additional options: 

• For you: For you is where you will find weekly summaries of your tracked results, including activity and sleep data.
• Promotions: Under Promotions, you will find marketing plugs and current deals for other Samsung products. 
• Notices: Here, you will find updates from the Samsung team, including changes within the app and information about Samsung Health content.
• Settings: Like a typical settings menu, here you can access account details, manage notifications, review your privacy settings, and more. 

Setting and tracking goals

Users are encouraged to set various wellness goals in the Samsung Health app. The most prominent goal is a target for active minutes per day. Every minute of light, moderate, or vigorous activity, including tracked steps, sports, and workouts, counts towards this goal. Users can also choose a target for daily calorie intake, steps, body composition, water intake, and sleep tracking targets.

One strength of the Samsung Health app is the variety of options users can access to view their tracked data. From the Home tab, tap on any category (exercise, sleep, heart rate, etc.) to open a new screen with a more extensive breakdown of your results. Then, in the top right-hand corner, tap the calendar or bar graph icon to see your results over the past week, month, or year at a glance. 

Apps compatible with Samsung Health

Unlike other fitness apps like Google Fit or Apple Health, Samsung Health doesn’t offer integration directly with many third-party apps, which Samsung refers to as “connected services.” The exceptions are the popular running and cycling app Strava and the wellness platform Technogym. However, Samsung does allow for data syncing via Health Connect.

Devices compatible with Samsung Health

Many fitness and health devices are compatible with Samsung Health, including several Samsung smartwatches. To view the complete list of compatible devices within the app, tap More (the three vertical dots in the top right corner of your app screen), then tap Settings. Scroll down to and tap Accessories and browse the devices listed in each category.

Here are the trackers, smartwatches, and accessories compatible with Samsung Health:

You can also access Samsung Health on your compatible TV to see data and workouts on the big screen. This is a favorite feature for at-home workouts. Log in to your TV with the same Samsung account as used for the Samsung Health mobile app, and link the two together on the Samsung Health TV app.

The Samsung Health app on your smartphone

Installing the Samsung Health app on your phone will offer the best user experience. It’s easiest to view detailed information on a bigger screen than that of a smartwatch. In addition to Samsung phones, you can add the app to an Android 8.0 or later phone or an iPhone 5 or above with iOS 9 or above. Apple iPads and the Apple iPod Touch are not supported. 

What’s missing from Samsung Health?

Based on users’ reviews, the biggest shortcomings of Samsung Health are the removal or downgrading of existing features. For example, Samsung redesigned the heart rate data display, removing the continuous heart rate line graph that many users preferred. In 2018, Samsung removed integration with third-party apps as well as temperature and humidity tracking. 

Additionally, as mentioned above, the Samsung Health app no longer syncs with many third-party services. Compared to fully integrated competitors like Google Fit or Apple Health, this is one of the app’s biggest shortcomings. Athletes looking to link their Samsung Health account to more powerful or niche apps, like Runkeeper or Headspace, will be disappointed. 

Some specific tracking categories in Samsung Health also have a few shortcomings. When adding food to calorie tracking, there is no option for scanning barcodes or inputting personal recipes. Sleep tracking doesn’t allow users to add in split sleep times or naps. When tracking runs, the app doesn’t provide a number of miles per week. However, these are all minor critiques as the tracking is fairly robust overall. 

Overall, Samsung Health is a solid fitness app and a good option for Samsung wearables. It tracks and organizes plenty of data to help users build healthy habits and get a handle on their fitness. The frankly absurd number of workouts and the community-building challenges are both aspects of the app that make it stand out. However, the market for fitness apps is competitive, and the app’s lack of third-party integration might be enough to steer some users elsewhere.