How Samsung's S Health App Stack Up Against Rivals: S Health Review

Samsung, the technology giant recently introduced their version of a native Health and Fitness app dubbed S Health on its latest top end Galaxy Mobile devices.

In a world bustling with health and fitness enthusiasts and a somewhat saturated supply of health and fitness apps in the mobile and wearable device market, Samsung fancies itself to do well and steal a fair chunk of the market share. Buoyed by the current success of its Galaxy range of devices, Samsung perhaps feels it can expand its ecosystem further by breaking into the health and fitness niche market.
S Health is an app which can track your exercise, your food and calorie intake, your daily weight and the level of comfort pretty much like what's already available on the market in one way, shape or form.
Samsung is one of the first mobile device manufactor to develop a comprehensive native mobile app which utilizes the mobile device's sensors and accessories to track your health and fitness.

Perhaps none of the S Health features are new in their individual forms, but Samsung has gone a step further to pack a lot of features in one application and it is the first time that we see a native app which is integrated and pre installed on a mobile smartphone.

The Interface
S Health which is currently available on Samsung Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3 has a beautiful interface and a clean look.

The home screen of the app displays the daily amount of calories you burn, your daily target and your total calorie intake out of your daily target intake.  Your daily
weight is also displayed on the home screen.
Like most such apps, in order for S Health to calculate your target daily calorie intake you will need to type in your body weight and height in the profile section. You also need to update your weight on a daily basis in order to get more accurate results.

Food Tracker
Food Tracker section is where you log your daily food intake. Together with the data of your daily weight, your height, gender and age, S Health, like most such apps, will calculate and display your recommended calorie intake of the day. S Health will also alert you when you reach your daily target.

What I liked most about the Food Tracker is the fact that it has a data base of most common foods, average potion sizes and the amount of calories thereof. This makes it easy to log in your food intake. Of cause if you want to be accurate you have the option to log in specific custom food types, potions sizes and its nutritional details.
S Health is one of a few apps that I have seen which has a good food data base complete with nutritional information. I tried several apps, lately and the only one I can think of is the 'Fitness' app in Apple App store which appears to have been withdrawn from the store.

The Exercise Mate and The Walking Mate

These two sections of the S Health app, are perhaps my most important. The Exercise Mate logs the amount of calories that you  burn. The display is live meaning that the burnt calories are tallied in the background as you go about your workout. Exercise Mate is were your running or cycling distance is tallied.  The app uses a GPS sensor to calculate distance covered and the speed. It comes complete with integration with background music from your mobile device music library.
You can also connect one of the supported wireless heart rate monitors to improve monitoring of your workout.  I was glad to discover that my Garmin ANT Heart rate monitor is supported and it connected without a problem. Therefore I did not need to buy one. If you already have a heart rate monitor it is worth checking if it is supported before buying another. The connection is simple.  It is a matter of wearing your monitor and then proceed to execute the connection process from within the Exercise Mate section.

I took the app for an outdoor test drive. As is the case in such mobile phone based apps you need your GPS switched on to map your run and log distance covered.  You can set a cycling, walking or running goal.  You can also set the intensity of your workout if you have a hate rate monitor connected. The app would then give you constant feedback on the level of your workout intensity and the app notifies you when you reach your goal.
I was a little underwhelmed by the amount and quality of information collected.

Information displayed after outdoor run

The details section of the collected data is  shown in the screen shot.  The data is not broken down into splits like what we see in other similar running apps. There is also no option to view your pace (minutes/km).
The audio feedback does not indicate your pace nor does it give you feedback at the end of your distance laps.

While you can determine your speed at particular time intervals in the Chart section of the S Health app you cannot use the app to determine your speed or pace at specific distance intervals.

Example of a chart generated after an outdoor jog

 That's because the App does not display automatic laps on the map though it shows your route. This is quiet disappointing given that these high end Android devices pack very powerful and sophisticated sensors and processors. A number of competing apps possess this ability.

I am not sure about the accuracy of the app in terms of measuring distance.  I need to take it out for further test drive to be sure on its accuracy.
The Walking Mate  section of the S Health app on the other hand presumably uses the gyroscope and other sensors to count the number of steps you take through-out the day.

Walking mate section of S Health app

You can set a custom target of the number of steps you plan to take per day. The mobile device will tally all steps you take as long as you carry your mobile device with on you all the time of course.
All the collected data can be viewed by tapping the right bottom icon of each of these sections. A neat line or a bar graph is at your disposal

An interesting feature I liked is that Walking Mate can automatically detect and distinguish between running, walking and going up or down, as you do when going up or down the stairs. This will no doubt give you an idea of the quality of your steps.

Drawbacks
The major drawback for me is  the lack of support for meaningful usage of a heart rate monitor for indoor running and walking as is the case when using a treadmill. You can use a heart rate monitor indoors but strangely the Exercise Mate will not tally  distance ran. It's not clear why Samsung did not use same sensors they used for Waking mate to determine distance covered when using a treadmill.
Other Apps such  as the Gamin Fit can make use of the heart rate monitor indoors when used with a foot pod. Nike's Running app on Android and iOS devices, for instance can calculate distance ran indoors. You can manually log your indoor running data but why should you when the high end galaxy smartphones and their associated accessories are capable of collecting all the information. Hopefully a software update will be issued to address this.
I also discovered that the app appears to exaggerate the number of steps you take when you are going about your daily business.  It tends to count 2 or 3 steps more than I actually take. However when I am walking steadily as you do when walking outside or on a treadmill the steps tally is pretty accurate.
The Exercise Mate could do better by displaying more information such as pace, number of laps, comprehensive and customisable audio summary of workout information at the end of each lap.

Of course S Health is only currently available on the Samsung Galaxy S4 and Note 3 meaning that at the moment you can not have it on any other devices. There lies another problem.  You could carry your S4 for a jog around the hood.  It certainly is difficult to carry around a Galaxy Note 3 for serious running session.

This is were I thought the Samsung Galaxy Gear could come in handy but Samsung appears to have missed the opportunity. A Galaxy Gear with a GPS would have meant that you can leave your Galaxy Note 3 at home and take Galaxy for an outdoor run. Or even for an indoor workout on the treadmill. The technology is already available on the likes of Garmin, Nike Fuel and Fit Bit.

Other Supported Accessories
S Health support a number of third party heart rate monitors, wireless weighing scales and Samsung's own Galaxy Gear, a wearable watch. I will update this blog when I get a chance to test these accessories.
Here is a list of currently supported accessories according to list found in S Health app:

Heart Rate Monitors
Samsung EI-HH10
Adidas miCoach Heart Rate Monitor
Garmin Heart Rate Monitor
Garmin Premium HAM
Timex Heart Rate Monitor
Wahoo Fitness Heart Rate Monitor

Watches
Samsung Galaxy Gear

Weighing Scales
Samsung EI-HH10
AND UC- 3 2 ANT
AND UC-32IPTB-C
TANITA Monitoring your Health BC-1000
TANITA Monitoring Your Health BC1100F
TANITA Monitoring Your Health BC-1500
Omron HBF-2061T

Overall
Overall S Health is an app with a beautiful user friendly interface.  It has a beautiful widget which gives you the main information right at your finger tips.
The integration with galaxy devices is seamless.
It is one of the best all rounder app for monitoring diet and exercise.
However there are better standalone apps such as Nike's Running, Runkeeper,Map My Run and Sportstracker which can give S Health a round for its money.
A software update should be able to fix some of the flaws identified.
I also hope S Health will land on other Samsung Mobile devices such as S3 and S2 or even as a stand alone app on Google Play for download on other android devices.
The absence of S Health on other Samsung smartphones, other android devices and indeed other platforms such as iOS and windows mobile, potentially limits the amount of market share this application can gain. It is however not inconceivable to  assume that Samsung want to draw customers to its high end devices hence the exclusivity of S Health to these devices.