Using a smartwatch can greatly improve the quality of your life. It can help you track your health-adjacent patterns, wake up easier and never miss appointments, and even pay for things without carrying credit cards.
But before you can take advantage of all of these benefits, you’ll need to know the following tips and tricks so you can set everything up the way you prefer.
Stay Updated From the Galaxy Wearable App
One of the first things to do when you first start using your Samsung Gear S3 is to make sure it always has the latest updates. You do this from the Galaxy Wearable app rather than the phone. Just open the app and select Home from the bottom menu. Tap Watch software update from the list. Enable Auto download over Wi-Fi. This will ensure that new updates upload and install to your Samsung Gear S3 automatically.
Change Watch Face With One Swipe
One of the easiest things to do on a Samsung Gear S3 is swapping watch faces whenever you get bored of the one you’re using. Long-tap your current watch face, and the display will change to a watch face browse screen. Swipe through to the face you want, tap it, and it’ll become your new watch face.
Use Quick Settings to Save Time
There are two ways to adjust various settings in your Samsung Gear S3. Things like enabling Do not disturb mode, Bluetooth, or Wi-Fi all require digging through the settings menu to find them. Instead, access these by swiping down on the screen to access the Quick Settings panel. You can also change the items available by long-pressing any of the icons to change them.
Organizing and Uninstalling Apps Is Simple
When you tap the Home button on your phone, it’ll open the app library. You can use the bezel to scroll through these apps. But sometimes, the apps you use most often may be at the end of the last menu. You can edit and reorganize this menu by long-pressing the screen, then holding and dragging the app elsewhere in the app library. To uninstall an app, tap the minus icon next to the app icon.
Using Samsung Pay Is Awesome
Paying with a credit card is so last decade. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could leave your credit cards at home and pay with your smartwatch? You can, with Samsung Pay. Just open the Samsung Pay app on your smartwatch, select Add card, and go through the steps on your phone to scan and add your credit card. When you’re finished, you can select the card from the menu when you’re in the store and tap Pay. Just place your watch next to any standard swipe to pay terminal, and it’ll accept payment just like if you swiped the credit card.
Use Home Button Shortcut to Save Time
If there’s something you do all the time with your smartwatch, like checking the weather or opening the same app frequently, you can set up double-pressing the Home button to do that. Select Settings, tap Advanced, tap Double press home key, and scroll to the widget you want to access with the Home button. For example, if you want to access frequently-used apps, scroll to Recent apps, and tap to select. Now you can double press the Home key and use the bezel to scroll through your recently used apps.
Stop Annoying Samsung Health Alerts
When you first start using your Samsung Gear S3, you’ll notice that Samsung Health alerts are set by default. If you sit for too long, you get a notification to move around. Whenever you walk fast, run, or do any other activity, you’ll see a notification asking if you want to log an exercise. You might find these notifications to be annoying.
To turn these off, open the Samsung Health app, select Settings, and scroll to and tap Inactive time alert and disable it. Go back to the previous menu, scroll to Workout detection, and tap it to turn that notification off as well.
Connect with Your Bluetooth Headphones
What could be more convenient than putting your phone away, wearing some Bluetooth headphones, and listening to music or making a call straight from your smartwatch? You can pair Bluetooth headphones with your Samsung Gear S3 by going to Settings, tapping Connections, tapping Bluetooth, enabling it (if it isn’t already), and then selecting BT headset.
This will initiate the pairing process with your Bluetooth headphones. Once paired, you can use your headphones for all audio activities with your smartphone.
Use Voice Control for Convenience
The ultimate convenience your smartwatch offers is the ability to interact with it without even touching it. Just by using your voice. To initiate this, open Voice from the apps menu or say, “Hi Gear.” You can say things like “send text to” and mention a contact name, or “show me my calendar.” See a full list of commands at Samsung’s help page.
Use the Vibrating Wake-Up Alarm
Feeling a vibration is one of the most effective ways to ensure that you wake up when your alarm goes off, and your Samsung Gear S3 can help with that. To enable vibration for your alerts, open Settings, tap Sound Mode, and tap Vibrate to enable it. Now, whenever you set an Alarm using either your smartwatch or your phone, your watch will vibrate whenever the alarm goes off.
Turn off HR Monitoring to Save Battery Life
The heart rate monitoring feature on the Samsung Gear S3 is pretty cool. You can keep an eye on your heart rate while you’re exercising. However, keeping this active all the time, or even limited to when you’re still, can severely reduce your smartwatch battery life. You can extend battery life by only monitoring heart rate when you tap the Measure button in Samsung Health.
To disable Auto HR, open the Samsung Health app, tap the heartbeat icon in the list of health icons, scroll to the bottom of the heartbeat page, tap Auto HR settings, and select Never from the next menu.
Set Up Send SOS Requests for Safety
Another nice feature of your Samsung Gear S3 is the ability to call for help automatically just by tapping the Home button three times. Your smartwatch will immediately issue a call to your emergency contact so you can let them know you’re in trouble.
To set this app, open the Galaxy Wearable app on your phone and select Send SOS requests. Select Send SOS messages to and enter the contact you want to use in emergencies. You could even use 911 if you prefer. Optionally, you can enable whether you want the app to wait 5 seconds before calling, so you have time to cancel the call if you need to.
If you live in a high-risk area, setting up your SOS contact as 911 can give you instant access to a 911 operator who you can talk to directly from your watch. Having this feature enabled could potentially save your life, so make sure to set it up.
Increase Sensitivity for Gloves
Another annoyance many people have with smartwatches is that in wintertime, when you need to wear gloves, interacting with your watch can be more difficult. You can make this a lot easier by enabling touch screen sensitivity.
To do this, go into Settings, select Advanced, tap Touch sensitivity, and tap the toggle to turn on touch sensitivity. Now, even if you’re wearing gloves, your smartwatch screen with work as though you weren’t wearing any gloves at all.
Schedule Do Not Disturb for Better Sleep
You can control all of the various silence modes from your watch, including theater, goodnight, and do not disturb. But do not disturb on your smartphone includes a scheduling feature. This way, you don’t have to worry about enabling it when you go to bed and disabling it when you wake up.
To set this up, go into Settings, tap Advanced, tap Do not disturb, tap Turn on as scheduled, and walk through the steps of entering the Start time and End time for do not disturb. Now you can forget about it and never worry about getting a night of undisturbed sleep.
Monitor Your Sleep Quality
Speaking of sleep, Samsung Health is one of the best apps out there for keeping a log of how well you’re actually sleeping. Open the Samsung Health app and scroll to the Sleep item. This is where you can keep an eye on your sleep patterns over time, including daily sleep hours and your average for the week. You’ll even see the “efficiency” of your sleep, which tells you how much of your night you were restless. You can see this same information in the Samsung Health app on your phone.
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