So now I feel like a bit of an idiot. But a happy idiot nonetheless
I've been wearing a Samsung Gear S2 Smart watch since the day it hit the US market. Yep, I'd been waiting for it, looking and waiting, reading and waiting for months. Admittedly I'm a former Pebble fanatic who became unhappy that they did not have a heart rate sensor to offer. I wanted the best of both worlds - a powerful smart watch for business use with good battery life (unlike apple watch that has to be charged daily), and good activity/sport features.
I was very
very happy with all the usual "smart watch" things the watch did, then realized how limited the fitness support was. At least I could not find a way to make it do what I wanted (e.g. continuous HR measurement, tracking and reporting of workouts etc). I could only measure my heartbeat once at a time when I triggered it, and had to go into that part of the menu to see it. It also did not seem to have a way to calculate calories from the heart rate data or do anything sensible with the data. Regular "activity" stuff worked fine - it would yell at me when I was sitting for more than an hour (configurable), it could measure steps and distance based on stride, and various other useful and useless things
About 3 days ago a software update was distributed. I discovered many of the changes last night!
WOW, now I am really happy and hopeful again.
I can now track an entire workout with a great on-screen progress display, monitoring the heart rate throughout, it estimates calories burned based on my personal data. Also allows you to set end and intermediate goals so you get feedback on your progress as you go.
Last night I did some circuit training with weights, wearing both my old chest strap (Polar) and my GearS2. The calories burnt and activity graphs given at the end were close enough on the two devices. Today I took a long walk here at work inside our buildings, clocked just over a mile. It reported the graph of my heart rate changes, calories, information about the zones I was in etc. After looking at old records in MyFitnessPal, I see that the information is all in line with what I had in the past with my chest strap.
I'm curious about how all the new activity modes work, what it does does differently for each. There are activities from Aerobics and Alpine Skiing, to Ice Skating, to Yachting and Yoga. Perhaps it's just a way to tag the workout with a meaningful name.
I will take it skating and see how it does and report back, probably not till weekend though.
I also need to check to see if they improved on the sleep tracking portion. Only draw back I see at the moment - it is only water resistant, not waterproof.