Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 40mm Black

Price paid: $102 for refurbished unit without a scratch The rating of 5 stars is based on the price paid, for a regular retail price of $179 or $199 I would give 4 stars. Comparison: I use the Garmin Forerunner 35 and Garmin Vivoactive 3 as benchmarks Daily use: For telling the time, I do prefer the always on display of a Garmin watch, even my old school Forerunner 35. The gesture to lift the watch to turn on the display on the Galaxy Watch Active does work pretty well. While it is possible to set the Galaxy Watch Active to always on display, I don't do so in order to conserve battery. Battery Life: The disdvantage of the very small size and low weight of the Galaxy Watch is the shorter battery life. Using the on board music with bluetooth headphones and the GPS ... MorePrice paid: $102 for refurbished unit without a scratch The rating of 5 stars is based on the price paid, for a regular retail price of $179 or $199 I would give 4 stars. Comparison: I use the Garmin Forerunner 35 and Garmin Vivoactive 3 as benchmarks Daily use: For telling the time, I do prefer the always on display of a Garmin watch, even my old school Forerunner 35. The gesture to lift the watch to turn on the display on the Galaxy Watch Active does work pretty well. While it is possible to set the Galaxy Watch Active to always on display, I don't do so in order to conserve battery. Battery Life: The disdvantage of the very small size and low weight of the Galaxy Watch is the shorter battery life. Using the on board music with bluetooth headphones and the GPS simultaneously drains the battery in a few hours. This isn't an ultra runner's watch. Display: The graphics and notifications are very pretty. Whether the pretty graphics are worth the higher power drain compared with a Garmin watch is a personal decision. Initially I was overwhelmed with the punchy graphics but they grew on me. Notifications: The notifications look great on the high resolution display and I sometimes respond to texts directly from the watch using canned replies or short handwritten replies. Non-Latin characters (such as Chinese) display on the watch unlike my US model Forerunner 35 or Vivoactive 3. Fitness features: I haven't tried the lap swimming or open water swimming yet. Even if the open water swimming tracking is not very accurate, I think it is a worthwhile feature considering the low price I paid. Durability: I like the metal body of the watch, in comparison with the more modestly priced Garmin watches that are mostly plastic. I ordered a watch protector to cover the watch body for Spartan races, etc. I may do with the watch in future. I didn't have a problem with scratching but I noticed that used Galaxy Watch actives typically had scratches or gouges on the screen bezel so I ordered a screen protector. Note that the screen bezel is curved; the tempered glass screen protector I ordered covers the display but not the bezel. Then I ordered a Spectre shield screen protector that is flexible and can cover both the display and the display bezel. Music: It was easy to transfer mp3 files using the Samsung Wearable app. Having music directly on the watch for me is not a necessity but it is a very nice bonus for the low price. Pairing with budget bone conduction bluetooth headphones was straightforward. Sometimes the music cuts out if my arm is too far away from the headphones, presumably due to the low broadcast power of the watch. This is a minor issue. On watch music would be a major advantage for gym goers that don't want to carry a phone, and I also go for short runs without a phone sometimes and use the on watch music. App support: Limited, compared to the Apple Watch and I would say more limited than the Garmin Vivoactive 3 though I didn't explore this in detail. I didn't see an app to support triathlons for the Galaxy Watch Active - this is something the watch could in principle support because it has running, open water swimming, and cycling. I use some timers and the Bixby app (Samsung's version of Siri or Alexa) for setting timers and such. I didn't see an app to support interval training which the Garmin Forerunner 35 has built-in. I have tried lots of watch faces both digital and analog which are fun but mostly stick to the simpler watch faces and use the Garmin Forerunner 35 to tell the time because of its high contrast always on display. Sleep tracking: The Galaxy Watch Active tracks light, deep, REM, and awake stages. The more detailed sleep tracking than the Garmin Forerunner 35 or Vivoactive 3 helped sell me on the Galaxy Watch Active. Verdict: For marathons or running in the rain, I prefer the physical buttons and high contrast always display of my no-nonsense Garmin Forerunner 35. I bought the Galaxy Watch Active and the Vivoactive 3 at the same time but ultimately returned the Vivoactive 3 and kept the Galaxy Watch Active. The Watch Active has decent sleep tracking, on board music, non-Latin alphabet notifications, and open water swimming and was light enough to wear as a second fitness watch for fun and the extra features. I think it would work as a primary watch for someone not doing super endurance sports, a gym goer, who likes the pretty graphics and is OK with the shorter battery life this entails.

I got this watch because it WAS attractive. I liked that it was round and had pretty choices for watch faces.BUTIt died within 18months. Warranty is 12month - but likely they would have said it was water damage due to me because I swam in it. It has both indoor and outdoor swim tracing functions but it is only considered water resistant for 10 minutes. Cool. (I say with heavy sarcasm)Also - step count is very innaccurate, the last update it has been unable to complete for months, and my strava running app on the watch would frequently fail to begin tracking until about 1km into my run. Also I thought I'd be able to save spotify tracks onto the watch and then run without my phone but you can only save your own music onto the watch.Oooo also I was unable to ... MoreI got this watch because it WAS attractive. I liked that it was round and had pretty choices for watch faces.BUTIt died within 18months. Warranty is 12month - but likely they would have said it was water damage due to me because I swam in it. It has both indoor and outdoor swim tracing functions but it is only considered water resistant for 10 minutes. Cool. (I say with heavy sarcasm)Also - step count is very innaccurate, the last update it has been unable to complete for months, and my strava running app on the watch would frequently fail to begin tracking until about 1km into my run. Also I thought I'd be able to save spotify tracks onto the watch and then run without my phone but you can only save your own music onto the watch.Oooo also I was unable to remain consistently connected to my phone (get texts, phone calls etc on watch). I didn't want that anyway, but for many people this is half the reason of a smart watch.(oh, and sleep tracking is completely not a useful function as you have to charge it every night)

The following represents my opinions based on my experience with the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active smartwatch which I pre-ordered on 3/3/2019:I have medical conditions that require me to be cognizant of my blood pressure. I endeavoured to do that with a home blood pressure cuff. I am also a bit of a “gear head” and have been most interested in wearable technology to accomplish the tedium of medical monitoring. When I saw the first rounds of talk about Samsung wearables being able to measure blood pressure a couple of years ago I was intrigued and kept a close eye on their progress. I was also very aware of their project involving the Samsung S9 and its special optical sensor that allowed it to measure blood pressure. When the release of the Samsung Galaxy Watch ... MoreThe following represents my opinions based on my experience with the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active smartwatch which I pre-ordered on 3/3/2019:I have medical conditions that require me to be cognizant of my blood pressure. I endeavoured to do that with a home blood pressure cuff. I am also a bit of a “gear head” and have been most interested in wearable technology to accomplish the tedium of medical monitoring. When I saw the first rounds of talk about Samsung wearables being able to measure blood pressure a couple of years ago I was intrigued and kept a close eye on their progress. I was also very aware of their project involving the Samsung S9 and its special optical sensor that allowed it to measure blood pressure. When the release of the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active was imminent I made it my business to check it out and read everything the Internet had to say about this watch.Based upon what I read I ended up purchasing one of these watches. It has a great design and offers an array of features that are certainly a step up from my Samsung Gear Fit 2, and I even found an assortment of settings that give the watch nearly 4 days of battery power on a single charge without compromising any functionality (at least for me.)I must say though that after the purchase (I pre-ordered it) I was profoundly disappointed when I was rudely awakened to the fact that the widely-hyped, blood pressure functionality that I purchased the watch for was not available to me because I was using a recently purchased Moto G6 phone. This phone is thoroughly modern and is running Android 8.0.1 (Oreo). I was flabbergasted to learn I needed to be running a Samsung S9 (at a minimum) to access the BP measurement capability of the watch. The marketing hype said that the watch did the work and that the watch was compatible with modern cell phones. Nowhere in my research did I find a published limitation of capability to a Samsung S9 or above for full feature capability - not in the dozens of media articles, and not in the Samsung press release which fueled those articles.Since March 15, 2019, the date the software which would provide the blood pressure measurement capability (now known as My BP Lab 2.0) was to have been released, references to blood pressure measurement have disappeared from the Samsung web pages devoted to the Galaxy Watch Active, and there has been veritable “radio silence” on the Samsung Support Community user forums from Samsung itself.I have a lot of Samsung stuff in my home - a kitchen full of appliances, TVs, a computers, and several sell phones. Up until now I’ve always found Samsung to be reputable and a company which stands by its products, but with this particular instance I feel a little short-changed as if the rules were changed after the fact. Most notably, the fact that the need for an S9 phone was made evident after the fact, and that people were not proactively advised of that fact in the press release and on the website. The Samsung press release spawned the media coverage (they didn’t make it up) and all that is on Samsung.People can say that I’m bitter about this and they would be 100% correct. They can also say that I’m being petty, but I would take exception to that. There is a lot of this kind of marketing going on in business in this country nowadays. It speaks more to the respect, or lack thereof, that we show one another than to the business itself - after all, it’s “only” a $200 watch. In the end though it does tend to leave a bad taste in your mouth, and people have a right to complan when they don’t get what they paid for. I find it interesting that you can go to the Samsung website today, navigate to the Galaxy Watch Active page, see the watch, purchase it perhaps for the price of $199.99, and then slide down the page to the Accessories section and pick up a $1300 Samsung S10 as an “accessory” for that $200 watch (you can get an S9 for a little less from other sources than their website.)I’ve been holding out a bit on returning this watch hoping that some good news would come, but I have decided to do so and look for a better alternative. I recently read on the Samsung Community Support site on Friday evening that one user had just “spoken with support” and was told that an update was going to be released soon that would solve the problem with the app and load all of the blood pressure measurement functionality onto the watch avoiding the interaction with a particular phone. It would be helpful for Samsung to confirm this if it is actually the case, but I’m not waiting for Godot any longer.I wish you well with the watch. It is a good watch, but not the watch I was sold.