#SLEEP TRACKER FOR SAMSUNG GEAR S2 INSTALL#
#SLEEP TRACKER FOR SAMSUNG GEAR S2 UPDATE#
#SLEEP TRACKER FOR SAMSUNG GEAR S2 ANDROID#

With a post-setup install courtesy of Here, the Gear S2 can also be used as a tiny map that pinpoints your location, which is neat as a parlor trick and not much else. Browsing through music is easy and you can control whatever player you're using, be it Spotify, Audible or Samsung's own Milk music service.

Given Samsung's fitness push with S Health in recent years, the S2 obviously also doubles as a more-than-decent activity tracker - heart rate readings seemed accurate compared to other wearables and my own finger-to-neck counts, as did the number of steps it thought I took each day. So, yes, the hardware is surprisingly great - what else does this thing do? Being able to display notifications is obviously table stakes for smartwatches. I wouldn't mind if everyone used this interface (although Samsung's lawyers might feel otherwise).

#SLEEP TRACKER FOR SAMSUNG GEAR S2 ANDROID#

There's something natural about spinning a dial to sift through messages or cycle through app menus, making Android Wear's endless menus and even the Apple Watch's mostly great Force Touch feel a little cumbersome by comparison. More importantly, the motion just makes sense. Meanwhile, each turn of the bezel is punctuated by a few highly satisfying clicks they're so satisfying, in fact, that spinning the bezel quickly became my go-to tic when just standing around. Spin the bezel a few clicks to the left and you've got a running tally of notifications from difference sources in my case, I usually had different notification screens for Outlook emails, calendar entries and Hangouts messages.Д¬rank the bezel to the right and you'll be sifting through widgets for installed apps - by default, you can quickly glance at your app shortcuts, steps taken, calendar events, weather, music controls, heart rate and daily health rundown. You'll still be tapping on that circular screen pretty frequently, but just spinning the bezel around takes you further than you'd think. I'm told I have a tendency to go overboard with the adjectives, so I'll keep it short: The Gear S2's bezel is the best smartwatch interaction method I've ever used.

#SLEEP TRACKER FOR SAMSUNG GEAR S2 UPDATE#

However, Samsung says the watch will eventually support Samsung Pay transactions thanks to a software update coming in a month or two. There's even an NFC radio in there, though you can't use it for much just yet. Just be judicious about it users can only access about 2.5GB of the 4GB of onboard storage. While we're talking about Bluetooth, you can sync music over to the watch and listen to those tracks on the move with a pair of wireless headphones. Better connectivity in watches is getting to be de rigueur, too, so the S2 packs a WiFi radio to keep the notifications flowing in even when the watch isn't connected to a phone via Bluetooth. The S2's innards will sound familiar to smartwatch fans - a dual-core 1GHz processor with 512MB of RAM run the show (with surprising oomph, but more on that later). There are 15 pre-loaded watch faces, including seven you can customize with complications. And of course, you won't notice any of these things before the 1.2-inch, 360 x 360 screen - it's a beautiful, pixel-dense display with bright, poppy colors and lots of contrast, which helps when you venture outside.

The mechanism keeps the S2's curvy lines looking good, but it's tougher to find cheap third-party straps as a result you'll need to turn to Samsung's own line of watchbands instead. Total acclimation time: about three minutes. Swapping those bits is a bit trickier than I expected - most smartwatches I've used with swappable bands snap into the sides with fairly standard spring bars, but the bands for the Gear S2 slide and lock into grooves built into the watch's lugs. On the back you'll find a heart rate sensor and easy access to the two quick-release latches for the watchband. (Style mavens might prefer the $350 Gear S2 Classic, which is slightly smaller and comes with a leather band).

The S2 has the muted charm of a Swatch, and its sleek lines and sturdy construction make it one of the nicer smartwatches I've fiddled with in a long while. There are Home and Back buttons (that occasionally do the same things) at 2 and 4 o'clock on the dial, along with a teensy microphone hole etched in between. It's a shockingly understated affair compared to Samsung's earlier work and indeed, a quick tour doesn't reveal a whole lot. Samsung has multiple S2 models in the offing, but I've been using the standard stainless steel version with a white elastomer band ($300).

Sleep tracker for samsung gear s2