Whether your thing is fitness, home automation, or productivity; there’s an app for you. The following Galaxy Watch apps will transform your watch from just a digital timepiece into a functional tool you’ll find yourself using every day. With a Galaxy Watch, you can install the Map My Run app on your watch and leave your phone in the car while you head out on your run. To use the app on your phone for logging a run, you’ll need to turn on Location in your watch settings. Once you do, you can start the run from your watch and it’ll log:
DistanceCalories burnedPace (including max and average)DurationHeart rate (including average)Max paceLocation and path of run
Once you return to wherever you left your phone, you can save the logged running session to your phone, and then to your cloud Map My Run account. It’s one of the few that offers not just your present active heart rate, but also a log of your heart rate over the last 240 seconds (4 minutes). The app displays your active heart rate and total time the app has been logging your heart rate. Under this is the screen-wide chart that displays the four-minute log of your heart rate. It’s a useful way to make sure your heart rate stays in a target zone during your workouts. The companion GymRun Workout Diary app for your Galaxy Watch is a useful add-on to the app. It lets you leave your phone in your gym bag, and you can log your entire workout right on your watch. The main screen offers three families of exercises to choose from:
Chest and BicepsLat and TricepsLegs and Abs
When you tap on any one of these, you can swipe your finger across the watch screen to scroll through the available exercises. Once you choose the exercise, you can set the weight and number of reps you’d like to do. Set the length of time per exercise, and the watch will count down the time as you exercise, and vibrate when you’re done. This app is not free; it costs $4.99. Just launch the app before you go to bed, set your alarm, and start the sleep monitor. The app will show a quick chart as it starts monitoring your activity and heart rate. As you go to sleep, the face will go dark, but the watch will be watching you carefully for signs of restlessness or light sleep. Over time, you can review your sleep patterns in the app. It’ll help you gauge what bed times and wake times result in the deepest sleep. The TizMo Galaxy Watch app does require you to enable Wi-Fi on your smart watch. But once you do, the TizMo scans your network and identifies all connected WeMo devices you can control from the app. Controls are very simple. You just swipe your finger up or down to find the WeMo device and then tap the switch to toggle the device on or off. The Triggers app lets you set up your watch so you can trigger what’s called a “webhook” in the web-based IFTTT service. IFTTT is a very simple cloud-based automation website that lets you connect many devices and services that you can control remotely through the service. Once you’ve set up your free IFTTT account, type webhooks into the search field, click on the Webhooks link, and set up your free webhooks account. Once you do, you’ll see a special URL with a long code at the end of it. Make a note of that code. Next, set up the IFTTT Triggers app. When you open the app, click on the menu icon at the upper right corner and click Set IFTTT Key. In this area, enter the long code from the end of the URL your recorded above. Now you’re ready to create triggers in IFTTT that you can trigger with your Galaxy Watch! Here’s how you set up IFTTT triggers to control from your watch: IFTTT is integrated with a whole family of smart home devices you can set up to control from your watch. Using an IFTTT Webhook integrated with the Trigger app on your phone and your watch, you can control almost anything with your Galaxy Watch. Once you have both apps installed, you can launch the app on your watch and see the camera view on your phone. It’s a easy way to remotely control the camera on your phone directly from your watch. Set up your phone and take group photos where you’re included! You can install the free version just to see how it works, but to keep using it permanently you’ll need to buy the full version. Tap on any of the calendar days to view the daily agenda. You can scroll up and down through your schedule by swiping your finger up or down on the watch face. Then you can tap on the event to view the details. Whatever the reason, it can be very convenient to tap your watch and get a reminder whenever you need. With the Voice Memo app, you can tap a record button and quickly record a memo that gets saved to your watch. Each memo is stored in a list that you can swipe through to play it again later. Record a grocery list at home that you can listen to at the store. Or record someone telling you their address or phone number so you can save it later when you have time. If you turn on the Speech-to-text feature, the app will instantly convert your recordings to a text note that you can view later whenever you like. It works in concert with the Gear Navigator app installed on your phone. How it works: This is especially useful while using walking navigation mode in Google Maps. Your watch will provide you with turn by turn directions at every street corner.
