How to Connect an External BT Heart Rate Monitor to your Samsung Gear or Galaxy Watch

If you're reading this then perhaps you are like me and where or are looking for a way to connect an External Bluetooth Heart Rate Monitor to your Samsung Gear or Samsung Galaxy Smart Fitness Watch? Well get ready because I have found a way to connect many popular External BT fitness devices to your Samsung Gear or Galaxy Watch even though Samsung says this is not possible within Apps.

Now before I get into the details I think I should clarify why this is even necessary. It all comes down to the accuracy of the built in Optical Heart Rate Monitor on your Samsung Gear or Galaxy Watch. These built in Optical Heart Rate Monitors simply do not do a good job reading your heart rate especially when your heart rate is jumping around a lot or your arms are moving around as in when you are doing a weight lifting, Crossfit, Bootcamp or other HIIT style training.

So back to the solution on how to connect an External BT Heart Rate Monitor to your Samsung Gear or Galaxy Watch. You are going to need to download and buy a Watch Face called "Sporty Watch". Sporty Watch is much more than your typical Watch Face, most importantly it has a settings option that allows for the connection of external BT Heart Rate Monitors and even some other Bluetooth Fitness Devices. Sporty Watch also taps into your Samsung Watche GPS for tracking GPS details during outside activities. Sporty Watch has access to pretty much all of the watches fitness related real time data which gives it all the information it needs to track your workouts in full detail.

When you are finished your workout, Sporty Watch saves the workout data to its own Diary if you want to recall the info later. SPorty Watch also syncs this data to a number of possible sources: Strava, TrainingPeaks, Google Drive, Diary Webserver.

I personally have Sporty Watch send the workout data automatically to Strava where I can see and share that data to MyFitnessPal and Samsung Health. The only thing that Sporty Watch and Strave don't take into consideration would be the total steps for your day which helps programs like MyFtinessPal figure out your total calorie burn for the day. This is not a problem because your Samsung Gear or Galaxy Watch your steps for you where you can see it in the Samsung Health App and also share step data with MyFitnessPal.

So there you have it!

Which is the Best Fitness Smartwatch?

The big question I often get from Clients and in general from people online is... "Which Fitness Tracker or Fitness Smartwatch should I get?" This is really a loaded question. It's kind of like randomly asking me what vehicle is best for you when next to no information about you has been told to me. Even if I did know what your vehicle needs are, there are so many options out there to choose from. Which company, what type of vehicle, what price range... This is the same when trying to figure out the best Fitness Smart Watches to consider.

Do you want a fitness watch more for fitness or for it's smart features, may be a little bit of both? How much money do you want to spend? How integrated with other software do you want it to be? Do you want a stylish Fitness Watch or perhaps a Sporty one? Are you going to be doing basic activities or complex and diverse activities? Do you want the utmost in accuracy when it comes to heart rate, steps and GPS tracking? Do you see what I mean here?

It gets even more complicated because it seem that every watch figures things out a little bit differently then the other ones. Some count more steps and distance than others, some will give you more calories for an activity then a different fitness Smartwatch or Tracker. Some allow for external heart rate monitors which is more accurate and some will only allow you to use the built in optical heart rate monitor. And at the end of the day which one is telling you the truth? Maybe all of them are but in their own way...

I have jumped from one Fitness Tracking device to another in my quest to find the best solution for me and just when I think I have found it, someone comes out with a device that draws me in and I have to try it out. Sometimes it works out for me and sometimes I find myself taking a step back but I kind of enjoy all of this fitness tech in the end.

So which is the Best Fitness Smartwatch? Hell if I know, you're probably going to have to try a few out until you find the one best suited to you. If you have no idea where to start, take a look at some of the Garmin and Fitbit products, they have a combination of really solid software and hardware offerings for a variety of needs.

Good luck in your quest and enjoy the journey...