Samsung Galaxy Watch (Gear S) Reviews

I read a lot of reviews about compatibility with iPhone before getting my Galaxy Watch (standalone version from T-Mobile). Everything I found said I would lose a lot of functionality because iOS did not play well with Samsung products. I’m happy to report that I can make and receive calls and texts without issue, even if I turn my iPhone off and leave it at home (reviews all said I would not be able to reply to texts from my watch). Almost everything seems to work without issue with the major exception of Samsung Pay. I’ve paired my watch with a Samsung phone, and I must admit this is a function I will really miss as I don’t like carrying a phone and wallet when I work out. Apple Pay won’t work on the watch either, for obvious reasons. One other thing that is not working on my watch (which worked when paired to a Samsung phone) is the voice to text feature. I think it worked when I first linked the iPhone, but it’s stopped working. This is a feature I hope can be fixed since it’s difficult to type out even short texts on the little screen.

I received a response from my earlier reviews a few days after I left the review. I had already fixed by deleting SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS from my iPhone and doing a factory reset. This fresh install made everything start working again however I did lose all my watch faces that are not showing available any longer. I give a 5 star now because I love the fact that they responded and it works.

Earlier review: I have had the watch for about 6 months and about a month in the raise hand gesture to wake quit working. I have it turned on in settings. I just did update where one of the changes is touch screen to wake and that doesn’t work either. Also about a month in the notifications of incoming calls and messages quit working. I get no sound or vibrations. I made sure theatre mode, do not disturb are not on. I have notifications turned on for the galaxy watch and messages. I have an iPhone 8 Plus and all software is up to date on both. I love the styling of the galaxy watch plus the personalization available over the Apple Watch but not happy with the issues I’m having. I can take a call and read messages when I see it is coming in on my phone. I used the Galaxy iOS app to ask for help several months ago but never got a response. I can’t find a number to call for text support.

I’m not sure what happened. My gear s2 worked fine about a month ago. Recently I changed my gear s2 battery. After that I have to reconnect my watch. I saw there was an update, so naturally, updated SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS , but now I can’t re-pair my gear s2 to my iPhone 11 Pro. I see the gear s2 in my iphones Bluetooth settings. I also see the gear s2 broadcasting Bluetooth in SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS. In SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS, I see the “LE” connection only and when I go to connect, it just times out. After much research, I found that other users have the same issue, which leads me to believe it’s an issue within SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS. Please test, isolate, and resolve this issue. Thank you.

Support has reached out to me, which was the next day! Thank you for responding so fast. Adding a start for support response. :)

Unfortunately, the suggestions provided haven’t worked. I’ve forgotten the gear s2 in the Bluetooth settings. I’ve watched the support video. SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS “sees” my watch. It just times out while attempting to pair. I’ve uninstalled SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS and reinstalled it. I’ve reset my network settings. I’ve rebooted my iPhone. I’ve reset the galaxy watch. I’ve turned all radios off, except for Bluetooth. I’ve gone into airplane mode, rebooted my iPhone, then turned on Bluetooth. All to no avail. I’m on iOS 14.7 with my iPhone 11 Pro.

Installed the latest App update a few weeks ago. Now if I walk away from the phone for 15min or more, the watch won’t reconnect
With the Phone. This rarely happened with previous version of App. Now, with SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS update, it happens constantly. Your developers have taken a step backwards with this new version and made its function worse. This has always been the weakness of SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS- not staying connected and updating/syncing watch info.

Update: iPhone XR. Seems it’s the IPhone Photos app or the Camera app(not sure which yet). After the latest Galaxy Watch app update, if either of these are running in the background , the watch disconnects from the phone and won’t reconnect until you kill and restart the Galaxy watch app and close the Photos and Camera apps. Sometimes you’ll have to reboot the watch too. Don’t update your app ! This ruins the experience of a great looking watch.
Do not buy. Look back at all the comments from back a year, Samsung doesn’t care about getting this fixed.

Samsung makes a great watch for those who want style and functionality ie looks great but not for hardcore active users. What let’s them down is SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS and the defecto war with apple and it shows in SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS . A lot of functionality is missing in SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS and it constantly disconnects from the watch and doesn’t automatically reconnects. My S3 doesn’t work any more won’t pair and I can tell it’s because of Bluetooth permission issues. My gear watch still works, but again disconnects is hard to ignore. I have tested both watches on Samsung phones and they work better, less disconnects and longer battery life can app is more polish than the iOS app. I hate square watches I will not buy one, i don’t like garmin I am not that into tracking my simple workouts. Also the garmin apps integration with apple health with read write access let’s me know most of the issues is apples vs Samsung related that leaves us the customer in the middle. It’s our money we should be able chose and have cross company integration, so I will not connect my phone with my iPhone or use apple health. I remember when keeping your customers happy listening to them was paramount.

Was excited to get my first smart watch. Longtime iPhone user but prefer the look of the Galaxy Watch so decided to go for it and buy one. I read and watched videos on the limitations of pairing with the iPhone. Figured there was plenty of functionality to make the purchase worthwhile. I would give it 4 stars if Samsung would allow the messages and email apps on the watch but sadly it does not. None of the videos I watched mentioned anything about emails and messages not be allowed by iOS users so wondering if these a recent change. Did some online searches to see if I was the only one with this issue. I’m not and there are lots of theoretical solutions like resetting the phone and such but none work. It seems clear Samsung is limiting these two apps and not allowing the iOS user to have them on the galaxy watch. Disappointed, obviously text messages and email notifications are an important function with a smart watch but they are clearly not available for iOS users. Will wait a week or so to see if there is a resolution otherwise this watch will be returned. Samsung I see you read and respond to some reviews. Can you confirm you are restricting the messages and email apps for iOS users on the galaxy watch?

I’m a watch magnet. I own Apple Watch, Huawei Classic, LG Urbane 2, TicWatch 2 and my absolute favorite Samsung Gear S3. I’m definitely an Apple person with iPhone, iPad and MacBook Pro devices. But Samsung nailed it with the Gear wearables (my new Galaxy Watch is already ordered.). Without a doubt, the Gear S app delivers all the functionality you expect and need. Notifications are great, phone call and message monitoring and more. Fitness tracking with the Samsung Health phone app is also top shelf. iPhone with Gear wearables is by far my favorite combo. The minor Gear S app limitations are imposed by Apple and not a shortcoming of SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS itself. For example, you can’t view phone battery status on the watch. Also, you cannot respond to messages from the watch. But the evolving niche of smart watches was clearly not meant to replace your phone. The only thing I’d like to see is the ability to access premium paid Galaxy App content. Otherwise, you won’t regret adding a Samsung wearable to your iPhone. BTW... Gear watches are great “watches” also with always-on displays and classic styling. Thanks Samsung!

***Update****
6/1 - So after tinkering with my phone upgrading and downgrading iOS versions and resetting my phone, the issue seems to disappear when my phone is completely wiped clean, but won’t connect at all if I restore my backup, so I’m guessing just a issue with iOS maybe or my phone in general, figuring it out was a bit of a hassle but just backed up my contacts and photos and wiped it to be able to use it again. So I am able to use my watch again, thanks to support for reading the reviews look forward to using it for much more and look forward to updates :) only gripe with SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS is I wish I could send music from my phone but I understand why we can’t send straight from out phone so overall still a great app :)

5/28 - I loved using my gear S2 with my iPhone XR and it worked for a long while with no major issues, but recently it hasn’t worked at all it won’t connect through SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS at all. I haven’t found a fix online at all either and have read people have started experiencing this issue as well.

When I had the Galaxy Note 10 the Galaxy pairing was seamless. Now that I am back to an iPhone much of the functionality was lost but that is to be expected going from Samsung to Apple.

The biggest complaint that I have is that I have to leave this open all the time in order to get notifications. If I were to walk or run out of range of my phone the watch does not sync back with the phone as it should. Only occasionally it syncs back. A bit of a downer. Additionally, I can no longer receive calls on my watch when I am not synced with my iPhone. I am paying for cellular that I am not getting that the Galaxy Watch is supposed to do.

I wish Samsung and Apple could just be friends and work together to share some tech. The consumer would benefit greatly from two great companies working in harmony.

Hey.

So I just picked up my Samsung Gear S2 le.
watch today and tried paring it to my IPhone 11 note the watch was never used and was still in the box when I got it. SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS says it cant connect and Bluetooth is on and I know the watch is up to date as far as I can tell but they will not pair what’s so ever, when I use SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS it will come up as we can’t connect to the device and just sit there then the watch will say “This is taking a longer then expected. Go back and try again”, when I skip SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS and go threw my phone’s settings to Bluetooth it says it will connect but will disconnect a few seconds later then say sorry the device is not able to connect please try removing the device from Bluetooth and try again.. idk what the issue is and when I jump on forms or Reddit I see people are having the same issue so idk what the deal is but yeah so hopefully a developer see’s this and can help out or if anyone knows pls help lol but yeah thank you for your time and have a good day or night idk it’s 3:32am for me rn as of typing this lol.

Don’t know why there are reviews between 2 and 4 stars. Either you like it or you don’t. I think the Samsung Gear is better than the Apple Watch. They seem to always be one step ahead of Apple. So that’s the reason for the review I am writing. Since I prefer the Samsung Gear I need this program to interact with my phone. There are apps that could use work and there are those that are awesome and became an important thing that I use in life every, if not almost every day. I am so glad that all the apps associated with Samsung Gear are supported on the IPhone IOS and not locked out for example there are things you can do with a Mac IOS or a Windows system. Just really glad they didn’t go down that path with Apple’s IProducts. As far as this program is concerned, it’s going to probably be a choice for everyone on whether or not you like the Samsung Gear or the Apple Watch.

I used SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS for about 8 months with no issue, then a couple months ago it was updated to a new/different version and nothing will load. SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS opens up and connects to my watch but every tab I click on to open pops up a never ending loading screen. I haven't been able to add apps or watch faces to my watch in months.
I would delete SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS and start over again but if I do that, since I'm not able to download anything new thru SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS , I'm afraid I would lose all of my current apps and watch faces and be stuck with the default watch with no customizable features.
I know, being that it's a Samsung watch app on an iPhone, there is going to be limitations but SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS has been essentially rendered useless for me.
Not really a big fan of the look of the Apple watch but with the way my experience has been with this apps lack of functionality I'm seriously considering the switch.

UPDATE:
Since the last update of SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS everything is working great! So glad I can update everything in my watch and download new faces again. Now that it works again and I'm able to go thru it, I'm really impressed with all of the features of SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS and how user friendly it is. Definitely a five star experience now! Thanks so much for fixing the issues!

I have an iPhone 11 and a gear3. I can’t reply to messages but that doesn’t bother me. I wanted the watch for notifications who’s works well. Now... to the “bug”, sometimes ( not every call, the frequency varies ).... when I get a phone call, the watch notifies me and then locks up. While the call is ringing in I use my phone to answer it. While I’m talking, my watch is still buzzing on my wrist and the notification screen shows the call trying to come in. As soon as I answer the phone, the watch notification should cease, but it doesn’t. I have to restart the watch. It happens enough that I chose to not allow the watch to show me phone calls. Even though I selected the “do not allow”.... the watch STILL shows me phone call notifications and locks up. I know it can’t be easy to have Samsung watch working on an iPhone which is why I still give 3 stars. Everything else works great. Fix this bug and you get 30 stars lol!

I installed SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS on my iPhone XS Max. I have a Galaxy S3 Frontier and tt pairs properly with the phone. However SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS is not loading the watch app store to download new apps and themes. I was able to before on my other iPhones. Now, there is an exlamation point on every option in SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS that uses the Samsung app store for the watch. When I click on it, I get a message that "This device does not support Gear". If that's the case, why was I able to connect it to the phone, get notifications... Apple cannot be blamed for this one. Samsung, you had plenty of time to work on something that will function properly on the new iOS version.
Samsung, if you are reading this, you are a very big company but your apps and support for your devices and software is horrible. That's the reason why you can't compete with Apple. Perhaps you can learn something from them!!!
I will stick Apple devices only going forward. They just work!!!! Everything is really just a recipe for frustration, a waste of money and more importantly, TIME wasted on trying to troubleshoot!!!

So everything was fine since I purchased the watch a couple of months ago, but suddenly (it happened overnight, no IOS update or watch iOS update happened), whatever app notification I have blocked on SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS stays blocked only until the watch is turned off, as soon as I turn it on, even though the apps are still blocked on SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS , I have to block them again on my watch. Not only that, but the icons (graphics) that used to match those of the actual apps (e.g. eBay with white icon), shows up as an orange icon, the same for all of the remaining notifications.

UPDATE Feb22:
After seeing the developer response you clearly did not read my review. I know how to block the apps in my watch, the problem is that they are unblocked once I turn off the device and on again (belattery dies, etc), I have to manually block each app again even though they were already blocked both in SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS and in the watch. Please fix this annoying bug, was thinking of buying a 2nd watch as a gift but not with bugs on SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS like this.

Need SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS to support my Galaxy Watch. Just wish it worked better and did more.

The notifications block list doesn't work at all. I specifically want to block my phone notifications because the default action for new voicemail notifications is Delete (!) instead of Dismiss. I’ve blocked them like I’m supposed to, but they keep coming. And notifications that have shown up on the phone and been cleared frequently reappear on the watch. Notification blocking doesn’t work on any other app either. The feature is broken.

The backup is a joke - it reportedly only backs up weather and notifications, both of which are automatically synced from my iphone. It doesn't back up my watch faces, app launcher layout, app favorites, settings pulldown favorites, wifi hotspots, stored workouts, or anything else I care about. What's the point of a backup then?

My son has an S2 but this won’t connect to SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS in iOS 15 at all. Doesn’t give me confidence that Samsung will continue to support their products, which makes me reluctant to spend any more money on future Samsung products.

Another problem: you need another app (Samsung Health) to connect to any of your workout data, but neither app syncs or saves workouts saved on the watch. This means there's no way to get them off the watch! In short, SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS is a weak effort and poorly tested.

4/2/19: I am an iPhone user with Gear S3 watch. News Brief widget is not loading the data. Tried several times by uninstalling and installing, restarted the watch but not working. When I open the News Brief app, it is showing the content as expected but looking from widget is not working. Please fix this.

Exceptionally awesome watch, I own Apple Watch and now Gear S3 Frontier for my iPhone. Samsung again proved they are the leaders in Hardware & quality. I love notifications, calls, samsung health and brilliant watch faces. Battery life improved a lot. Thank you Samsung!!

Expecting to add our own widgets on watch face like I want to add one stock information. Also please consider and come up with adding Samsung default app for stock market information including bitcoin and able to add widget for stocks. That’s all Samsung, keep rocking!!

At first it was great... until yesterday, more than 24 hours ago, I was trying to find my phone using the “find phone” feature on the watch. Regrettably, no audible tone sounded on my phone, which was in the same room, and I eventually found, without any assistance from SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS . And SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS no longer functions, other than a constant message: “finding your phone”. The dismiss button serves no function. The screen persists. I have rebooted both phone and watch multiple times, closed and reopened app multiple times, but the same message persists. I love the watch, despite the short 24 hr or less battery life, but I would love to have a useable app. If fixed I will gladly update this.
Update: I had to delete the SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS and reinstall to fix the issue. Now to get the battery to last the 3-4 days as advertised...

I have owned Samsung Smart phones for almost 18 years so I was very excited to get my S3 smart watch since I didn’t like the look of the Apple Watch. The Gear S3 worked great for a year and loved the look and feel. However right after the one year manufacturers warranty was over it started malfunctioning.

Another thing to point out is that you need a separate line of service from your carrier to be able to answer calls, if you don’t have separate service for your watch you WONT be able to answer or make calls on your watch. I was OK with that until It started malfunctioning, starting with Heart rate sensing that could not be read, steps were not counted, kept loosing Bluetooth connection from the galaxy watch App, gps not working.

It went from a smart watch to an expensive normal watch that tells the date and time. I purchased my wife a Fitbit versa 2 for less than half the cost of mine and it works far better than my expensive Samsung Gear S3.

First, let me say, I absolutely love this watch. I only wish it were more waterproof like my Garmin fēnix. The syncing with my iPhone XS Max is good. Once synced, it is a solid connection and rarely have I had any trouble. The initial sync, either due to changing phones or resetting digital devices, is less than desirable. Realize you must “forget device” if previously connected. Even after all the “must do’s” it still is tricky to sync and I need to make several attempts. All of the functions are what I need from a smart watch. Understand that the iPhone pairing doesn’t allow for calling from the wrist and texting from the wrist. If you can do without that, I say get the watch and stay hooked to SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS once it connects. Altogether, I’m not even sure if the pairing is SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS ’s issue or if it’s the iPhone -> watch issue. Overall? Great watch, good app.

I like the watch and all it can do. I also like the 3 day battery life. I feel it does ok at Heath tracking as well. However, I am disappointed by the Bluetooth connection stability. I can get it to connect to my iPhone initially but if you walk away from the phone far enough that Bluetooth is lost the watch will not reconnect with a stable connection. It will reconnect, then drop a few seconds later, then reconnect and repeat continually. There are many others with this issue or similar and there are many options to try to resolve this. I have tried them all such as reset, reboot, reinstall app, and so forth and I have tried all of them on both the watch and the phone. Connection will restore but it’s temporary and you will encounter the same issue after a day or two or maybe the next time you leave your phone and get too far from it again. In my opinion this is related to the iPhone app because if SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS is closed the reconnecting loop will stop but it will remain in a standalone state. Based on all the reviews here and on the internet, this is an issue that Samsung should be aware of and have fixed by now. This is why I give it 3 stars. Mostly because I like the watch itself. But app is not so stable.

Having constant trouble with my galaxy frontier S3 on my 11 pro max, it keeps losing the connection and most of the time the watch is on standalone mode. Have tried dozen times to re install SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS , have reset the watch dozen times, basically tried all the possible options to troubleshoot but it seems to again lose the connection again and again. Don't know whether SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS is just a crap or it's just my watch. It was the same thing on my XS but used to work brilliant with my note 8 before!

Seems everybody is complaining about this issue with IOS 13, and the threads go back till October, but Samsung's not taking any action. Come on Samsung, is it not obvious what the problem is, you keep going around and suggesting steps to fix the connection issue while knowing that the background app refresh, bluetooth notifications or all the other ones are not the real culprits. Something went wrong with the IOS 13 and you failed to test with Beta version before the release that's why your app is not conpatible with IOS 13, just say that and drop the support of IOS 13 before you fix the issue, don't you see everybody is dissapptioned. Take a quick action to fix this, otherwise eveybody will shift to apple watch and you'll lose a big clientele!!

With my Samsung Gear S3 Frontier it Works seamlessly - I’ve owned an AppleWatch for years but never have I experienced the realistic crisp visual as I have on this Gear S3! I thought w my Apple Watch that I was at the top of the food chain... no, I wasn’t. I can receive all notifications minus the images within text, email and my Ring doorbell/cameras. But hey, this ISNT an Apple product. SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS installs/updates hundreds upon hundreds of watchfaces as well as the Samsung Health app cross-communication between iPhone & Gear S3. I can find my watch from my iPhone but not my iPhone from my watch - that [ability] I miss but consider it a small price for what I get - oh, did I mention I have full GPS via satellite or wireless triangulation - yea. Anyway, I’m off my soapbox now. I didn’t mean to bash Apple who by the way; I’ve been a user of since system 7. Anyway; enjoy, like I said - seamless 😉

Let’s be real, we all got a Samsung watch because Apple is slacking badly in the watch game. Other than the design and battery life of the watch, the reason these watches stand out against the Apple Watch is because SamsungGalaxyWatchGearS gives you the ability to download ‘watch faces’ from 3rd party developers. This is something simple Apple is missing.

Now the reason I gave this a 4 star is because of a small issue. Whenever a app/watchface is downloading and you continue to browse the ‘store’ it often disconnects your connection to the watch and stops the download. I then go into my phone’s Bluetooth settings and it says I’m connected so I have to disconnect and reconnect multiple times before the watch sees my phone again (or vise versa). Now this can very well be an issue with the iPhones Bluetooth but I doubt it.