The Gear S3 is finally here. If you managed to pick up the Classic or Frontier already, or you’re planning to buy one, then you’ll know that the latest Samsung smartwatch is pretty easy to get to grips with.
It’s also crammed with a lot of features, making it a whole lot easier to miss out some of the extras that have been added that didn’t make the cut on the Gear S2.
Wareable verdict: Samsung Gear S3 review
We’ve spent a decent amount of time with the S3 getting to the ins and outs of the Apple Watch Series 2 rival, to find out what it’s really capable of.
Here’s our pick of useful tips, tricks and hacks to try out after you’ve got it out of the box and ready to use.
Turn on the Always on watch mode
Out of the box, the Gear S3 is set up to only activate when you prompt it to. Whether that’s raising the screen towards you or tapping on the physical buttons to wake up the display. If you’d prefer it to act like a normal watch and display the time 24/7, head to Settings on the watch and select Style. Tap on Watch always on and you’re good to go.
Get your app icons in order
Now you can decide where your apps live simply by going into the app menu screen and pressing down on any app. Now you’ll be able to drag it into another place. If you want to move it to another page, simply drag the app over the Next Page icon.
Quickly jump into the music player
There’s two ways to open the music player on the Gear S3, but for the quickest route to get some tunes playing, swipe downwards from the main screen to access the status panel. Tap the music note icon and it’ll launch the music player instantly.
Pair Bluetooth headphones
Now that you’ve got 4GB of onboard storage and the possibility of streaming Spotify (when the app eventually launches) from the LTE version of the Frontier Gear S3, it’s a good time to invest in a pair of Bluetooth headphones and leave your smartphone behind if you’re out for a run or heading to the gym.
Once you’ve got your Bluetooth buds powered up, head to your Gear S3 and go to the Settings app icon and select Connections. Press down on the Bluetooth option and that’ll open your connection options. Hit BT headset and it’ll scan for available devices nearby.
Turning off continuous HR monitoring
The Gear S3 is jammed pack with sensors and fitness data and while we’re not the biggest fans of the heart rate monitor when exercising, it seems pretty adept at delivering reliable resting heart rate information. The problem with having a heart rate sensor continually taking readings is that it’s going to have an impact on battery life. If you’re not fussed on knowing your heart rate all the time, go to S Health on your Gear and rotate the bezel all the way to the right to find the S Health Settings. Here you can turn off or turn back on the Auto HR mode.
Sending out an SOS
Thanks to the built-in GPS, you can track activities but also share location data with Samsung’s new SOS mode. If you’re out hiking with your Frontier and get into trouble, you’ll be able to tap the Home key (the bottom physical button) quickly 3 times to send out a message.
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First you need to head to the Gear Manager app on your phone and go to Settings to get everything set up. Select Send SOS requests and here you’ll be able to decide how the SOS message or call is sent to. You can also add a count down before raising the alarm just in case you accidentally set it off.
Add widgets
One of the new features introduced in the latest version of Tizen is the ability to create widgets so that your favourite apps, quick access to contacts or data from S Health can live on a separate home screen. To do this, twist the S3’s bezel all the way right until you see the Add widget icon. Once selected, you’ll see a collection of different widgets that can now be added.
If you want to remove a widget, simply press and hold on the widget and tap the minus to get rid of it.
Put the watch in power saving mode
The Gear S3’s battery life is pretty good and in our testing managed around three days. Samsung claims you can get up to four days and that’s definitely possible with the help of the power saving mode.
When you turn it on, this essentially restricts features turning off all functions apart from calls, messages and notifications. To do this, you need to press and hold the bottom physical button. This will open a menu of options including Power off, Touch sensitivity and finally power saving mode.
Quickly restart the Gear S3
While we haven’t experienced any bugs, that’s not to say that you won’t. So if you find the Gear S3 is playing up or not being responsive, the quickest way to restart it is to hold the Home button (the top one) for at least seven seconds.
Perform a factory reset
If that doesn’t do the trick, the other option is to entirely reset the watch, which means sacrificing any data you have saved on the device. There’s two ways you can do this. The first is from the watch itself where you can head to Settings, and then Device where you’ll see the option to Reset the Gear. If you can’t get to that screen, you can go to the Gear Manager app on your phone go to Settings and then select About Gear. Here you can then select to back up and restore.
SOURCE:http://www.wareable.com/samsung/samsung-gear-s3-tips-and-tricks
