A Hands-On Look At Samsung’s S Health App

If you’ve read our previous post on the Samsung Galaxy S5, you’ll be familiar with the S Health application that comes pre-installed with the device. As a long-time Samsung Galaxy user and a fitness enthusiast, I’m always interested in testing new smartphone apps that could help me manage my health and fitness. With S Health having multiple functions built into one handy app, I was excited to give it a try.

Homescreen
Starting with the simple homescreen, S Health does a great job of providing an overview of your progress for the day – steps taken, calories burned and your caloric intake. When maintaining a healthy lifestyle, consistent exercise and nutrition are both important factors to consider, so having all this data in one place made it extremely easy and efficient to ensure I stayed on track. S Health also lets you choose your background –  definitely use a picture that makes you happy and keeps you motivated!

The home screen after breakfast and a quick stroll outside.

Calorie Counter and Daily Log
S Health allows you to customize your individual experience by inputting your gender, age, weight and exercise activity to determine recommended daily caloric intake to meet your fitness goals. For those interested in tallying your daily macronutrients, the app comes equipped with a streamlined calorie counter. Use the daily log to select and list what you eat under the appropriate meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks.) This feature is simple to navigate with a large database of food and beverage items to choose from. Once a selection is made, easily change portion sizes to reflect what you’re actually consuming.

I especially like the option to attach an image of your meal because who doesn’t like taking photos of what you’re eating?

Screenshots of the S Health Food application.

Pedometer
Another handy feature of S Health is the built-in pedometer. Not only can it count how many steps you’ve taken, but it gives you the overall distance travelled and the estimated calories that you’ve burned along the way. Earn awards when you’ve reached a specific amount of steps and see how you rank against fellow S Health users – a great way to bring out the competitor in you. Users also have the option of turning push notifications on,  enabling the app to send you the occasional reminder to keep active.

Perfect opportunity to take a snap with the killer 16.1 MP camera.

And, those already maintaining an intermediate or advanced fitness regimen have the option of incorporating other Health and Wellness apps like Sleep, Workout Trainer, RunKeeper and Lark Activity Tracker. They are all offered on a demo-basis and provide a well-rounded cache of tools to help you maintain your new lifestyle.

Overall, I was very pleased with the S Health app.  It’s easy to use and can scale as your fitness level progresses. Have you used S Health or any other fitness apps? Please share your experience in the comments below.