“On Friday I unboxed and got all set Samsung’s Gear Fit activity tracker. This is the company’s first direct attempt at competing with activity monitors from the likes of traditional players like Nike and FitBit, as well as newer entrants such as Garmin and Polar,” DC Rainmaker writes.
“With everything all setup I was ready to tackle the world. So I slipped on the device and went about my business. Which in this case, was mostly just odds and ends around the house. It was about 30-45 minutes later that I wondered why I still hadn’t seen any steps recorded. So, I walked circles around the couch a bunch, thinking perhaps it needed a bit more walking. But alas, nothing,” DC Rainmaker writes. “That’s when I realized that you actually have to turn on the pedometer function on the unit in order to track steps. Yes, seriously. I can’t make this stuff up… While I can see some minor edge cases that you might want to turn it off (such as automatically if in cycling mode), no other activity tracker on the market does that. And honestly, for good reason: It’s stupid. It’s far too easy to forget to turn it back on, and thus, you’d have no daily activity tracking.”
“Your experience will actually vary depending on if you have an older device or not. If you have Samsung Galaxy S3 for example, you get Fitness with Gear. That app is super-clunky and often pulls up with malformed pages,” DC Rainmaker writes. “And as I found out, despite linking a Samsung account – that data actually goes nowhere. For example, when I then added the S5 to the mix, the data didn’t show up in S Health there in my history. And, you actually can’t get the Fitness with Gear app on the S4/S5. So effectively, Samsung built a cloud-based service that lacks the cloud. We’ll just call that a rock.
“If I break out the S5 however, and use S Health, then things get a bit better. Your heart rate data and exercises will transfer to the S Health App. However, your pedometer data (that’s the step data) and sleep data from the Gear Fit won’t. Instead, you’ll just get a big fat zero there,” DC Rainmaker writes. “It’s only when you start the pedometer using that ‘Start’ button on the phone that it starts counting steps…from the phone, not from the Gear Fit. Here, let me re-word the ludicrous nature of this again: The Gear Fit device can’t actually transmit step data to Samsung’s premier fitness app on their premier phone… The only way to get step data to show on the phone is to simply press the ‘start’ button on the phone and track steps there. Thus defeating the entire point of purchasing the Gear Fit.”
DC Rainmaker writes, “I’m honestly dumbfounded. It’s as if nobody on the entire Samsung team ever stood back, looked at any of the fitness trackers on the market (even the worst of the worst) and copied anything that users actually use or value in an integrated activity tracker device. Never mind more 2010-ish features like social connectivity, competitions, or the like. This is a product I wanted to love, but ultimately, it just ended up being a huge disappointment. ”
Tons more fun in the full, comprehensive review here.
MacDailyNews Take: Samsung is clueless without Apple to copy, but they could’ve at least tried to copy Nike’s FuelBand.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Christopher Pallotta” and “stevenlufc” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Clueless companies race to debut stupidwatches before Apple defines the smartwatch – January 3, 2014
Jim Cramer: ‘The curtain has closed’ on Samsung’s stupidwatch – October 3, 2013
The Verge reviews Samsung’s Galaxy Gear stupidwatch: Orwellian, unintuitive, oversized, and overpriced – October 2, 2013
Jean-Louis Gassée: I hope Tim Cook had fun goading Samsung to make their Galaxy stupidwatch – September 9, 2013
Stupidwatch: Why Samsung’s Galaxy Gear is a flop – September 5, 2013
Samsung Galaxy Gear watch looks rushed, misses the mark – September 4, 2013
The Galaxy Gear stupidwatch: Without Apple to copy, Samsung is clueless – September 4, 2013
Samsung announces ‘Galaxy Gear’ watch accessory for Galaxy Android devices – September 4, 2013
