Samsung S Health update: compare steps with friends, easier heart rate monitoring and more

Health has become an important staple in Samsung‘s smartphone business model. They are one of the very few to use heart-rate sensors in their smartphones, as well as supporting Bluetooth blood pressure monitors, blood glucose monitors, scales and more. It all gets recorded through the S Health app, which continues to get better and is getting a significant update today.

Likely the coolest improvement is that S Health is getting a little more competitive (though some of you may actually not like that idea). Users can now compare their step counts with friends, as well as put this data up against their own age groups. You can even challenge friends to reach certain activity levels. To make step counts more accurate, the app can now combine steps measured by multiple S Health-compatible devices and applications.

Also improved is the ability to measure your heart rate. In essence, it is made easier with a feature you can turn on from the app. After it has been activated, one can go ahead and place a finger on the heart rate sensor, turn the device around and let the phone work its magic.

Users can now also export heart rate, blood pressure and glucose data as HTML, XLS and PDF files. In addition, it’s possible to sync data with the CareSens N Bluetooth glucose meter. And of course, there’s your usual bug fixes and performance improvements.

Go get your update from the Google Play Store now. And don’t forget to hit the comments to let us know how these new features are treating you! Will you be competing with your buds?