Now available in Thailand, the new Samsung Galaxy Fit e is a fitness tracker with a heart rate sensor that comes in sleek design. It’s light and comfortable to wear too and best of all, comes at a very comfortable price.
Even with a heart rate sensor, it goes for just under Bt1,500 so few will have an excuse for not staying active and healthy.
The Galaxy Fit e has a footprint of only 40.2 x 16.0 millimetres and weighs just 15 grammes. I found during my test that it was really comfortable to wear even in bed where I used it to monitor my sleep.
The tracker comes with a monochrome 0.74-inch PMOLED display with 128x64 pixels resolution. It has 128 kilobytes of memory for storing your fitness data, such as number of steps walked, amount of calories burned and exercise undertaken, all of it synced to your Samsung Health account.
And even though it’s light and sleek, the Galaxy Fit e is compliant with military-grade durability standards and with a water resistance of 5 ATM so you can use it outdoors even when it’s pouring with rain.
Two apps are required for use with the Fit e. First, you need to install the Samsung Galaxy Wearable app that will connect the Fit e to your smartphone and downloads all the interface software necessary to communicate with the fitness tracker.
Then, you will need to install the Samsung Health app to allow the fitness data from the tracker to be transferred to the cloud storage of your Samsung Health account.
The Galaxy Wearable app will guide you to link the fitness tracker to your smartphone using a Bluetooth connection. Once connected, the fitness tracker will relay notifications from your smartphone to the Fit e. You can use the app to adjust which app can send notifications to the tracker.
You can also use the Galaxy Wearable app to set alarms on the tracker, which will vibrate when the scheduled times come round.
The Galaxy Wearable is also used to select location for weather data to be sent to your Fit e.
The first clock face screen shows the current time, the number of steps you have taken and the calories you have burned. Six more clock faces, including two with the date, can be downloaded.
The factory setting on the watch has four widgets for reporting current accumulated steps, your burned calories, the length of your sleep and the weather. Use the Galaxy Wearable app to add two more widgets – Calendar and Heart rate – or remove the ones already installed. You cycle through the installed widgets by tapping the display.
The tracker automatically detects three activities –walking, running and dynamic workout. You can use the Samsung Health app to manually start and stop and record other exercises, including cycling, swimming, treadmill and exercise bike. Several more exercises are available for download and use via the app, including jump rope, jumping jacks, golf and dancing.
Galaxy Fit e (left) with elder sister, Galaxy Fit (right).
The first time you use Samsung Health, you should specify your birth date, gender, height and weight so that the tracker can accurately calculate the calories you have burned.
The Samsung Health app sets the goal of 6,000 steps each day. The app will display a dashboard that show the progress towards that goal, the amount of active time spent and the number of calories you have burned and as well as how long you slept the previous night.
You can also use the app to update your weight and the number of glasses of water you have drunk and the amount of calories you have consumed.
The Fit e automatically tracks your sleep and analyzes your sleeping patterns throughout three stages of sleep by detecting the movements of your body as you sleep.
During the test, I wore Fit e to walk to the mouth of my soi to exercise and buy dinner. The tracker automatically detected my walk and recorded it automatically. The tracker detected my stop and wait at the food stall, stopped my walk and saved the activity automatically. The distance calculated by the tracker was quite accurate.
The tracker has a good battery life. One full charge lets you use the tracker for six or seven days.
Samsung Galaxy Fitness e is available in white, black and yellow for Bt1,290. The yellow one is particularly attractive and great for anyone who wants a sporty look.
Key specs:
OS: FreeRTOS
Display: 0.74-inch PMOLED with 128x64 pixels
Memory: 128 KB
Sensors: Accelerometer, HR Sensor
Battery: 70 mAh, 6-7 days typical usage time
Dimension (HxW, mm): 40.2 x 16.0
Weight: 15g