Samsung makes fitness a little more social in latest S Health update

Samsung has made yet another update to its S Health platform, this time around making the app a little more social. The update follows a new update from Microsoft just last week, which delivered a few social aspects including a leaderboard mode, which allows you to compare your step counts with others of similar physical build.

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The new update from Samsung offers a few similar features, such as the ability to compare your step count with others in the same age bracket as you, as well as in your circle of friends.

Apart from allowing you to compare step counts with others, the new app also offers better step tracking — that is, it combines the step counts from any wearable device with step counts from the smartphone’s accelerometer, resulting in a more accurate count. Wireless syncing has also been improved, now syncing with glucose-monitor hardware for diabetics. Also helpful for diabetics is the fact that all of the app’s data, including data from blood sugar monitors, can now be exported for use with different software or for review by healthcare professionals.

The heart-rate sensor has also become a little bit quicker to respond — now you can measure heart rate simply by placing a finger on the sensor and turning the device over, as long as the Quick Measure feature is activated within the app.

And, of course, the new app has a number of bug fixes and other minor changes.

It’s certainly interesting to see Samsung trying to make fitness a little more social — the idea is that by making personal fitness a little more competitive, users will want to be more active. It’s a win-win — users get more fit and companies have more people spending more time on their apps.

You can get S Health for yourself at the Google Play Store.

from Planet GS via John Jason Fallows on Inoreader http://ift.tt/25l6WIB
Christian de Looper