Samsung Gear Fit Smart Watch Black US Version

I bought 2 of these - one for me and one for my wife (yeah, we're that kind of annoying couple who like to match things. Don't judge... :P ) The Good: Notifications on your wrist; Not bulky like most other 'smart watches'; 2 to 3 days battery life; Pedometer seems very accurate; water and dust resistent; reasonable cost for the functionality you get. The Bad: It only pairs with Samsung phones (I have a GS4). The fitness functions are a little....clunky (except the pedometer). I was an active Fitbit Force user who refused to send it back when it was recalled, but I really found the idea of notification on my wrist appealing and I got tired of waiting for Fitbit to come out with their new line-up (which of course is out NOW. ;-\). My biggest disappointment with this device is the software integration. The Gear Fit Manager is passable - no real issue with that. However, this device is supposed to integrate with S Health. I knew going into this that S Health does not currently measure up to the Fitbit software - but I'm hoping Samsung continue to refine the application to make it more usable/functional. In the meantime, I was hoping to make due with it. However, I was never able to get my Gear Fit to fully sync to my S Health application. Even after being on the phone with Samsung support for over an hour and allowing them to remote control my phone, the issue was not resolved. They suggested that I do a factory reset on my phone to see if that would help, but I'm not ready for that hassle at the moment and decided to live with the limited functionality for now, hoping an update in the near future might help. I must say that i'm not encouraged by the recent S Health update that got pushed to my phone recently. After it installed, my phone started popping error messages "Gear Fit Manager has stopped" about every 10 seconds!! VERY annoying. I was only able to resolve the errors by DISABLING S Health altogether and re-installing the Gear Git Manager. Summary: so despite the horrible software experience I've had so far, I still give this product 3 Stars (maybe 3.5 if that was possible) because I find the on-wrist notifications and step tracking to still be a fair amount of critical functionality for the price. However, if you're primary purpose in buying this product is the FITNESS feature set (FIT is IN the name, after all!!), I'd actually recommend you look at one of the new Fitbit devices that recently came out. If Samsung ever creates a software experience like Fitbit, this would be a 5-star no-brainer....but I'm still waiting. UPDATE: Yesterday, I upgraded from the Galaxy S4 to the Galaxy Note 4. After getting the Gear Fit setup and synced to my Note 4, I now find that the Gear Fit activity data IS properly syncing to the Note 4. So, I'd have to say that if you have a NEW Galaxy S device (Note and likely the S5), you should expect everything to work....finally. So I'm going to increase my rating to 5 stars! Read more

While we wait for the Smartphone Revolution to take off, this may be just the perfect device. It doesn't scream "Nerd Alert" as most of the other huge and ugly devices do. It manages to fit into the socially accepted fitness-tracker category, yet will give you all the necessary alerts you need to keep from having to pull out your phone. Best of all, it doesn't try to do too much. Who needs to take pictures with a device on their wrist, or talk to their watch? But a nudge that I can glance at and choose to take action or ignore when my phone receives a notification is perfect. I can even quickly respond to text messages without taking out my phone with "OK" or "Yes/No" or "Call you in a few minutes" or anything I decide to put into the choices. When I connect to the bluetooth in my car, I can adjust the volume (which is somehow always too low) without taking out my phone. Stuff I need, without the nonsense I don't. As a fitness tracker, it's not as good as others I've tried. I carry a Fitbit One, and the Gear Fit is noticably different in counting steps. I get fewer on the Fit, which is much better than getting more. Gives me a marginal estimate of what my Fitbit is tracking, and it pushes me about 10-20% harder to get to my daily 10,000, which is good in my book. I like hearing the trumpet fanfare when I get to the magic number, and my Fitbit stats are that much higher. Unfortunately, this device works best with Samsung phones. You can use it on other Android phones if you "sideload" the app. You lose the ability to respond to text messages and transfer your step counts, but most of the other functions work. I really wish Samsung hadn't limited it in this way, but I have a Samsung phone so it's OK I guess. Anyway, the smartwatches today and those coming in this first round are much too big and ugly. None look like watches at all, and I refuse to put something that awful on my wrist. When acceptable watches are out, I may switch, but the price and function of this thing is just perfect for me right now. I'm sold. Read more