Samsung’s S Health fitness app update aims to make fitness fun and competitive

S Health is a fitness app that boasts over 150 million global users. Although it’s a fairly effective fitness tracker, it’s clear that Samsung is looking for ways to make the app more engaging. That’s why they’ve packed some new features into the latest update that launched in tandem with the Gear Fit2. Let’s take a look at what’s new!

If you’re someone who thrives on competition, then we’ve got good news for you. S Health is now has a slick “Steps Challenges” feature that lets you pit your activity against your friends. You can create custom step challenges by picking a number of steps and inviting a friend to compete with you. You can keep track of who is winning the competition in real time and demonstrate to all your friends how much of a better stepper you are.

If you don’t have any friends or lost all of them due to them not being able to handle what a superior stepper you are, then you can bring your step game to a global audience thanks to the Steps Leaderboard.

As an additional note regarding steps, it’s worth pointing out that S Health now does a much better job of keeping track of your steps, even across devices. You can even look at your entire step history with the “All Steps” option.

S Health also does a better job of automatically detecting workouts, so you don’t have to deliberately tell it that you’re going for a run. Just step outside your door and start jogging, and the app will realize that you’re on your workout. What’s more, it also now has the ability to register breaks in a workout session. With Auto Pause turned on, you don’t have to worry about a conversation with a friend at the park completely trashing your average mile pace.

On the organizational side of things, S Health has made it far easier to select exercises by separating them from the other device options into their own separate category. These exercises also have discrete tracking and goal functions, so you can easily measure your progress in each one.

Quick Measure is a new feature that automatically detects when you’re attempting to check your heart rate. You won’t even have to launch the S Health app with this function turned on. Simply place your finger on the heart rate sensor and let the magic happen.

It looks like that’s all that’s new and improved on S Health this month. What do you think of these updates? Is S Health your go-to fitness tracker, or do you have a different preference? Let us know in the comments below!

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