Health in Your Hand: A Look at Samsung’s New Galaxy S6 Smartphones

Can your smartphone help keep you healthy?

Increasingly, the answer is an unqualified yes. Today’s smartphones are stuffed with tons of sensors and computing power – just the ticket to help you set fitness goals, track your activity, share the results with others and push yourself to the next level.

With Samsung’s Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge shipping pre-loaded with the S Health 4.0 app, health and fitness fans have never had it so good.

S Health App Evolves

Smartphones these days do far more than just handle email, web and apps. With a range of sensors including GPS, accelerometers, and even barometers, they’re increasingly becoming the centrepiece of an active lifestyle regimen – and high-powered hubs for ever more sophisticated fitness programs.

Samsung’s S Health 4.0 is the latest version of an industry-leading fitness app that first appeared in 2012 and has been steadily upgraded ever since. While the Galaxy S4 included a built-in pedometer, the Galaxy S5 added an integrated heart-rate sensor. Upgrades that first appeared on the Galaxy Note 4 included new sensors that further expanded the app’s capabilities. The built-in blood oxygen saturation sensor helps maximize aerobic efficiency, while a sunlight ultraviolet level sensor tracks exposure to harmful UV rays and helps protect your skin from further damage from the sun.

The Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge include all hardware and software upgrades to-date, and set new standards in smartphone-based health and fitness management. Whether you’re walking, running, cycling or even hiking, the included S Health 4.0 app measures how far you’ve gone, how many steps you’ve taken and how many calories you’ve burned. It tracks environmental conditions and saves your workout data for further analysis or for sharing with your doctor or trainer.

Fitness Beyond the Phone

The Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge smartphones can be further paired via Bluetooth with a wide range of external devices – including blood pressure monitors and blood glucose meters from a number of leading vendors – to allow users to accurately measure their levels over time. Both phones run the latest version of the Android mobile operating system – Lollipop, version 5.0.2 – and support health care standards.

For those reasons and many more, we should expect the number of solutions to grow as the market for compatible devices and apps continues to expand. Wearables like Samsung’s Galaxy Gear Fit and S Band extend the health and fitness capabilities of the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge even further, by giving users the functionality to track sleep patterns and allowing real-time performance monitoring during exercise.

The bottom line

Smartphones are increasingly being used as the centrepieces of fitness and health care, and the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge further expand what’s possible. If you’re looking to lose a few pounds, drop your blood pressure or otherwise lead a healthier life, look no further.

How would you use a GS6 or Edge to raise your fitness game? Drop us a line and let us know.