Newbie Smartwatch Questions - Galaxy Edition

[njgsx96]

Hey everyone, looking for a little assistance. I am completely new to smartwatches and was hoping to get some answers here as it relates to the Galaxy Watch and I guess smartwatches in general. I picked up a Note9 at launch and am going all in with Samsung and making it my first smartwatch. I am on Verizon so not sure when/if LTE comes out so BT/Wi-fi is OK. I want it for... telling time (duh) and tracking steps and activities and such. Some of my questions might just be me not knowing anything about smartwatches, and I apologize for being such a newbie.

1.) If I go for a run or walk or whatever, and I do not carry my phone with me, will GPS still work as well as logging and when I get in range of the phone or to a known wi-fi hotspot, will it upload/sync to the phone app?

2.) I use the Samsung health app. Do I want to use the phone to track or the watch or both? Do they sync properly or do they differ and cause issues in tracking?

3.) For a watch with no connectivity (LTE), is wi-fi as goo as BT? Meaning, if I have the watch connected to wi-fi, will it talk to the phone? Or does it need to be paired with BT?

Any other things to look out for in general?

thank you everyone!
Rich

 

[pkcable]

1. Yes it should.

2. I'm pretty sure the Samsung Health app will aggregate data between the phone and the watch. I don't really know for sure, BUT it should work that way. My Apple watch does this. I can't imagine the Samsung watch not doing this.

3. Totally not sure on this. In theory it should, but in my experience (Apple Watch, TicWatch2, and Android Wear), I always used Bluetooth. Why wouldn't you want to use BT? You CAN still connect other devices, such as a headset, or BT speaker. WiFi won't really save you much battery life over BT use, UNLESS you have to have the WiFi on anyways.

 

[11B1P]

with my S3 and SH, if I set both to track steps, there used to be a difference. May be different now, but I use only my watch to track steps. How many times do you leave your phone laying around while you walk around the house? You'll be wearing your watch more, so I'd set SH to track via the watch

 

[njgsx96]

3. Totally not sure on this. In theory it should, but in my experience (Apple Watch, TicWatch2, and Android Wear), I always used Bluetooth. Why wouldn't you want to use BT? You CAN still connect other devices, such as a headset, or BT speaker. WiFi won't really save you much battery life over BT use, UNLESS you have to have the WiFi on anyways.

Thanks for the breakdown! To clarify more on #3 , I wrote that thinking of work. where I work I am unable to have my phone out so it is sometimes easier to leave it at my desk. But I can have the watch so if I have that connected to wifi, will it report back to the phone regularly or does it need to be back within range of the BT to do so? otherwise, you are right, I will be using BT otherwise.

Thanks, Rich

 

[njgsx96]

with my S3 and SH, if I set both to track steps, there used to be a difference. May be different now, but I use only my watch to track steps. How many times do you leave your phone laying around while you walk around the house? You'll be wearing your watch more, so I'd set SH to track via the watch

Yep, makes sense. I will set my watch to do the tracking. Appreciate it!

 

[rav813]

watch and phone would need to be on the same wifi for it to report back or get new notifications. Otherwise it goes into "standalone" mode and basically logs stuff like activity, and any cached reminders/events

 

[rav813]

1) yes, it will log and sync once connectivity is restored

2) i keep tracking on both, but the watch usually detects more and more accurately. All the data is synced to Health so I never worry about which device is doing the logging

3) if both watch and phone are on the same wifi, then they'll talk over wifi. So in my house, phone is on charging stand, watch still sends notifications and such. Otherwise, watch goes into standalone mode until it can talk to the phone again

 

[njgsx96]

Awesome, thank you everyone!