In this day & age, technology is ruling every single aspect of our lives. While smartphones are doing the job of handling most of the technology-related details of everyday life just fine, there are quite a few tasks and situations where a smartphone is considered too big of a device to carry around. This is when the world started realizing that it is time for smartwatches to permanently enter our lives and become the new crucial gadget to get everything done in your day!
As the top two smartphone manufacturers, Apple and Samsung started the smartwatch race, we got several versions of the new gadget and got to see how it evolved in functionality across multiple brands. Now, after starting as a sports gadget used to keep track of your vital signs and do a few phone-like tasks, smartwatches are getting to a point where they are expected very soon to be able to replace a smartphone if the user wishes to. If you are open-source software (Andriod) enthusiast, you must be into the Galaxy Watches. While considering to get your next Galaxy Watch, the experts at QwikFone are bringing you suggestions regarding the best apps that you can get on your Samsung Galaxy Watch.
Get to know the Samsung Galaxy Watch active 2
Before choosing which apps to download and run on your Galaxy Watch Active 2, it is important to be aware of your Watch’s capabilities and space in order not to overload it with unnecessary apps that would drain its power faster than it has to.
The Samsung Galaxy Active 2 comes in 2 different sizes and, just like a smartphone, the size difference mainly affects 2 aspects of the smartwatch. Those aspects are the display and the battery capacity.
First, we have the 44mm Galaxy Active 2 watch which comes with a 1.4 inches screen size, a 360 x 360 pixels display, and a 340 mAh battery.
The other size other Active 2 watch is the 40mm which offers 1.2 inches of display with the same 360 x 360 pixels resolution and a smaller battery with a capacity of 247 mAh.
When looking at the differences, there seem to be not much of a loss here between the two size of the Acitve 2 except for perhaps the battery which has about 100 mAh power difference which, in case of a smartwatch, is definitely significant.
As for the rest of the specs of the Galaxy Watch Active 2, they are exactly the same across the two different sizes:
- Dimensions: 44 x 44 x 10.9 mm
- Body: Stainless steel frame – Gorilla Glass DX+ front
- Sound: Loudspeaker
- OS: Tizen-based wearable OS 4.0
- Processor: Dual-core – Exynos 9110
- RAM: 1.5GB
- Internal storage: 4GB
- Connectivity: WiFi 802.11, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, NFC
- Sensors: Accelerometer, gyro, barometer, heart rate sensor
- Charging: Wireless charging
As you can see, a few years back, these would have been the specs of a full smartphone for the most part. So, except for the camera, The Galaxy Active 2 is capable of doing almost any smartphone task which means that it can handle many useful and fun apps for you to enjoy.
The best apps to use on a Samsung Galaxy watch Active 2
There are loads of Android apps available in the Google Play Store. This is why it can be overwhelming for users to choose which ones to try out and actually start using. This situation can result in one of the two things, either you would just lose interest in all the new apps and settle for the basic most needed apps on your Galaxy Watch Active which would be considered a waste of your smartwatch’s capabilities, or you’d end up trying every single app that comes your way while spending too much time assessing each app to decide whether it is worth your time and the space on your Galaxy Active. Either way, you would waste a lot of recourse whether it is the watch’s potential or your time trying to figure this whole thing out.
This may start to seem pointless as the goal of all of these tech gadgets is to make our life easier as we try to catch up with our fast-paced life and many tasks we have to accomplish everyday. To make things much easier for you regarding which apps to download and use on your Galaxy Watch Active or Active 2, these are our top recommendations:
1. ParKing
If you don’t like driving, then parking must be one of the most daunting tasks that you have to go through on a daily basis. From finding the perfect spot to park in public parking spaces, given that you find a space to park in the first place, to finding your car in those huge areas where tens of cars are parked; it is just too hard and takes up too much time to be something that you have to deal with every day!
With Parking on your Galaxy Watch Active 2, one of these annoying details will be lifted off of your shoulders as the app will help you find where exactly you have parked your car if you can’t remember. Once your appointment or chore is done, this car locator app will help you locate your vehicle in no time.
2. Glide
Whether you’re the 80s or 90s baby or not, we all had that futuristic dream of not only speaking into our wrist devices but also to have a video interaction on a watch. Well, now all of that and more is possible with a Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 device and Glide app for video chatting and messaging.
On an Android smartwatch, Glide will enable you to watch your video messages and respond to them using a text, an emoji, or a voice message. Unfortunately, Glide won’t be able to record your videos on the Galaxy Watch since the watch does not have a camera. Anyways, it is fun to take the future one step at a time, right?
3. LifeSum
One of the earliest purposes of buying and using a smartwatch is fitness reasons and keeping track of your exercise routine and your vitals like the heart rate while exercising. Now once you install LifeSum to your Active 2 watch, you will have a personalized dieting assistant that will help you discover which diet plan is best for your weight loss needs and lifestyle.
You will be able to insert your current weight and your goal weight, your daily or weekly exercise routine. The next step will be the app recommending the perfect diet plan based on your personal details.
4. Google Keep
Instead of having multiple apps for your note and lists on your Galaxy Active 2 which would take up too much storage space and RAM, Google Keep will do most of these functionalities for you. If you are one of those people who get great ideas all the time, but those ideas fly away as fast and easy as they come to you, you most definitely need Google Keep in your life and in your smartwatch. This app is perfect for Quickly capturing your thoughts before you forget them.
With several options and forms in which you can keep your notes and ideas such as text, images, and voice records, no idea will be able to escape your amazing note app!
5. Strava (exercise & fitness)
While LifeSum is more diet-oriented and focuses on your meals and what you are eating, Strave is more focused on your exercise details. It allows you to keep detailed track of your exercise. Whether you prefer running, swimming, or cycling, Strava will keep maps of your routes, your favorite exercising locations, and analyze your exercise patterns.
Strava also has the option that allows you to share your favorite routes or other training details with your friends on different social media platforms.
6. Wear Casts
Songs and music are not the only option to pass your exercise time. With Wear Casts, you can listen to your favorite podcasts on your smartwatch as it was especially created and developed to work with the Wear OS that runs smartwatches. This app does, however, have specific recommendations in the hardware specs for the app to run perfectly. Luckily, it requires 1GB of RAM which means that it will work perfectly on the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 with its 1.5GB RAM capacity.
In terms of listening to your podcasts, you can either stream them while being online or download them to listen to them later when your smartwatch is not connected to the internet.
7. AccuWeather
If you’re living in an area of the world where it is usual to get storms during the winter season, AccuWeather is a necessary app to have on your smartwatch to have accurate forecast of all the winter weather forecast. This way, you can plan your events and the overall schedule without worrying about how the weather will be like.
8. Bring! (Shopping List)
While there are many apps that act as your virtual and eco-friendly shopping list, Bring! is more than just a list. This particular app will integrate your customer loyalty cards, shopping list, suggestions for your grocery shopping trips, and recipes with their needed ingredients all in one place!
Perhaps the best part about this app is that it allows you and all of your family members to participate in determining what your shopping list items are going to be. This is the perfect solution in order not to forget anything which may, and probably will, result in you having to go to the grocery store more than once.
In a way, Bring! acts as your smart assistant that is specifically designated to simplify your shopping task different details.
9. Citymapper
If you often visit new countries and new cities, you must know what a headache it is to find how public transportation works in each city and what are the best options for your needs in different situations. Citymapper will help you overcome this issue by providing a list of the available public transportation near you with the closest departure times and fastest routes in order for you to be able to reach your destination as east and fast as possible with the least amount of trouble.
This app comes in especially handy if you are in a country where you don’t speak or read the local language and it is hard for you to read and understand the street signs and bus station names for example.
10. Uber
Whether you are in your city or abroad, as long as Uber services are available, you will never feel lost or late to a date or an appointment. Uber is now a worldwide ride-sharing service that lets you take a private car to wherever you want to go. If you’re in a busy large city where taxi services are more difficult to come by than it has to be, then Uber is your perfect companion to your important appointments when public transportation just won’t do.
While it is unlikely for anyone to not know Uber now, if this is your first time knowing about it, you would be thrilled to start using it as it lets you book multiple types of trips.
Once you book a trip, the app will let your ride driver know your location via GPS and, in turn, you will be able to see the location of your ride and where it currently is on your smartwatch screen. You can pay using multiple payment methods including credit cards, Android Pay, and, in some cities, cash.
After the ride, you will be able to rate your driver and the ride overall based on the car’s level of comfort, how safe or reckless the driver was, the choice or route, and so on.
11. Shazam
It is very annoying to have an earworm (also known as sticky music) that you cannot get out of your head. But it is even more annoying to hear a part of a song or music track playing nearby and you want to listen to it again but can’t because you can’t identify it.
Having Shazam on your Galaxy Watch will spare you this pain of experience as the app will identify any piece of music playing so that you can listen to it as much as you’d like. Perhaps until it even turns into your new earworm!
