Gear Review Samsung Fit

Samsung Gear Fit is one of the most wearable devices that struck me during the Mobile World Congress 2014. It is, in fact, a smartwatch to all intents and purposes, under the clothes but an accessory for fitness which leads almost exclusively the .

Hardware

From the hardware point of view Gear Fit certainly does not envy anyone, we find the bare minimum. The most interesting feature is probably the display is curved by 1.84 inches diagonal Super AMOLED technology, the rest are: Bluetooth 4.0 to interface with a smartphone, accelerometer, gyro sensor for detecting the heart rate and 210 mAh battery.

How the Samsung Galaxy S5 too Gear Fit is equipped with IP67 certification and therefore appears to be waterproof if immersed in water up to a maximum of 30 minutes at a depth of one meter and dustproof.

A great missing in my opinion is rather light sensor which requires very often have to manually adjust the brightness level of the display. It would not hurt also find a microphone and a small speaker, but it is after all an accessory for fitness and not a smartwatch, from which, however, inherits many features and functionality.

Display

The display is very special and beautiful: it is a Super AMOLED curved 1.84-inch diagonal touchscreen. The definition is not very high so much so that watching carefully you can see the pixels, but overall it is a nice display with excellent colors.

As reported earlier Gear Fit however is deficient of a brightness sensor and it forces having to repeatedly adjust the brightness during the day. By day, in fact, you should take it at level 4 or 5 (if not 6, which is the maximum, when there is so much sun), while at night, at those levels, we could practically light up the Colosseum and then you have to bring it back to the level 1.

In this regard it might be useful application that adjusts the brightness depending on the time, just to cover this small shortcoming of the ambient light sensor

Battery

From the point of view, however, the battery of the battery, the situation is very delicate: her life depends very much on how you use the Gear Fit. Personally I wanted to put under stress as much as possible this Gear Fit and consequently I left active:

Pedometers

Refilling instead it seemed a bit ‘slow with the supplied charger (from 0.7A). About 50 minutes to fully charge and we are talking about a 210 mAh battery.

Software

The operating system is Android, but Tizen; however, the device is configurable and works only with the Android and especially with the latest products from Samsung. In fact we managed without trouble configuring Gear Samsung Fit with a Motorola Moto X by simply installing the apk Samsung Fit Gear Manager, however, some things may not work, such as data synchronization with S Health and sending automatic replies from Gear Fit.

As for the rest, the operating system of the Gear Fit runs smoothly and is free from jamming; also the launch happens quickly (5-6 seconds) and immediately you can use all the different features.

Among these are:

Notifications: ability to see and read the notices that we receive on your smartphone (you can also open the notification on your smartphone by pressing a button). Every time we receive a notification on Fit vibrating alerts us;

Media Control: ability to start the program for the music on your smartphone, change tracks or adjust the volume balance;

Settings: ability to set the clock image, background, bluetooth settings, the functionality of the physical key if pressed twice, the personal profile or restore the Gear Fit;

Timer: A simple countdown;

Stopwatch: A simple stopwatch;

Find your smartphone: to ring your smartphone so you find it (of course must be within bluetooth);

Pedometer: A simple pedometer;

Exercise: to draw while we are doing exercises such as Running, Walking, Cycling and Hiking;

Heart Rate: To measure your heart rate.

The detection of the heartbeat occurs according to me discretely. Unfortunately during testing I had no opportunity to check the measured value, so it is better to perform the calculation several times to find a value closer to the real one. Also very difficult to be able to detect the beat while we are standing.

In conclusion

Samsung Gear Fit In conclusion, a very interesting device because it is different from a simple accessory for fitness. It combines the typical features of a smartband with those of a smartwatch making it a more complete accessory and especially with a nice curved display that follows the appearance of the wrist.

A device comfortable to wear and useful in many situations, but with just a couple of shortcomings such as the light sensor and not full compatibility with any Android device. The price of Samsung Fit Gear is 199 euro, in line with the prices of smartwatch.