The Samsung Gear Fit 2 has received several updates since its launch.
The last update was on May 2nd, 2018. You can find a video about this latest at the bottom of this post.

I’ve made several videos about the compatibility of the Samsung Gear Fit 2 with the iPhone, two of them being the most important ones. Check them out below and/or continue reading under them.

BIG FEATURE UPDATE December 8, 2017: 

Original review with more details about its compatibility with iPhone (April 2017):

In this article:

1. Why I switched from Android Wear to the Samsung Gear Fit 2
2. What works on the Gear Fit 2 when paired with an iPhone
3. How do the iPhone apps look like?
4. What doesn’t work when paired with an iPhone
5. How to transfer music to the Gear Fit 2 if you’re an iOS user
6. How to control music playing on your iPhone, on your Gear Fit 2
7. Update in July 2017
8. UPDATE: new update in December 2017
9. How to sync your Gear Fit 2 with Strava, Runkeeper and Endomondo as an iPhone user
10. UPDATE: new update in May 2018

1. Why I switched from Android Wear to the Gear Fit 2

Since I had an iPhone, I was hoping that my Sony Smartwatch 3 would get Android Wear 2.0, so I could install apps on it. Unfortunately, Sony decided not to give the smartwatch an update, so I was stuck with a smartwatch that just gave me notifications. I wanted something more. Something that could track my activities. I didn’t want to pay more than 400 euros for an Apple Watch, so I decided to have a look at the FitBits. But then… I came across the Samsung Gear Fit 2. I fell in love with its screen, the amount of information that can be displayed on it and the fitness capabilities it had. The only thing that worried me, was how compatible this Samsung product is with the iPhone? Well, here’s my review, last updated in December 2017.

2. What works when set up with an iPhone?

First off, Samsung is warning that it’s only compatible with iPhone 5 or higher. This also means that it’s not compatible with the iPad, even though you might be able to run it.

The good news is, that most features work when you have an iPhone. I can even say that it does more than Android Wear 1.5, as it syncs fitness data to Samsung Health, something you can’t do with Google Fit on AW 1.5.

List of features, all displayed on the Gear Fit 2 itself:

• Timeline tracking: get an overview of all your activities of the past 24 hours, including important info (all on the watch itself!):
  • time
  • type of activity
  • heart rate
  • burned calories
  • automatic sleep tracking
• Step count
  • set a goal
  • view average step count of each day and of the past 4 weeks!
• Calorie count (in timeline)
• Floors count (dramatically improved in the March update)
  • set a goal
  • view average step count of each day and of the past 4 weeks!
• Heart rate monitoring:
  • measures your heart rate: either frequently (every 10 minutes), or constantly (new since the big December 2017 update)
  • manually measure your heart rate
  • view your lowest and highest heart rate in the past 24 hours
  • get an overview of your lowest and highest heart rate of the past 4 weeks!
• Activity logging:
  • automatically detect workouts
  • manually start a workout
  • set a goal
  • GPS tracking
  • constant heart rate monitoring during an activity
  • autopause
  • notification intervals
• Caffeine intake count
• Water intake count
• Change and customise watch faces

All of this can be read on the watch itself. This means you don’t need a phone to register or to read your activities. This vast amount of information made me buy this Gear.

3. How do the iPhone apps look like?

What works in the Gear Fit 2 app on iPhone?

The Samsung Gear Fit 2 app received a two big updates in the second half of 2017. Here are the current features (last updated in December 2017):

• Sync with the Gear Fit 2
• Information about your Gear Fit 2: battery, storage and RAM
• Suggested watch faces
• Link to the Samsung Health app
• Notifications:
  • Receive notifications from your phone on your Gear Fit 2
  • Block apps from which you don’t want to receive notifications
  • Turn on or leave screen off when receiving notifications
  • Display details of notifications (like reading texts)
  • Display an orange indicator, indicating that you have notifications
• Rearrange apps
• Automatically update apps
• Weather location
• Find My Gear: lets your watch vibrate so you can find it
• Link to the new Samsung Health app (since December 2017)
• Samsung Galaxy App Store: Download free apps and watch faces onto the watch
• About Gear: back up and restore
• Legal information

What works in the Samsung Health app on iPhone?

• “Me” section with movable tiles containing information about:
  • Active minutes — when tapped, you get detailed statistics from the past days/weeks/months
  • Steps
  • Cycling
  • Walking
  • Heart Rate
  • Sleep
  • Floors
  • Workouts
  • Food (manual registration)
  • Water intake (manual registration, also on the Gear)
  • Caffeine (manual registration, also on the Gear)
  • Weight (manual registration)
  • And you can still add many more from a very long list of all kinds of sports
• “Together” section with;
  • Your leaderboard, comparing you with the averages of your age group
  • Your friends
  • Your challenges

4. What’s not possible (yet) when connected to iPhone?

I’ve also reset and set up the watch with an Android phone to see the differences. Here they are:

I’ve found only two limitations on the watch itself:

• With the default tracker, you can’t view the map on the watch after a workout: you can see the route, but not the map itself. However, with the Endomondo app (which also synchronises), you do get to see a map.
• You can’t reply to notifications, besides answering/declining/redialling phone calls. My guess is that it’s Apple that doesn’t allow this.

Since December 2017, there’s a Samsung Health app for iPhone, which makes the Gear Fit 2 even more useful.

5. How to transfer music to your Samsung Gear Fit 2

6. How to control music on your Gear Fit 2

There are two ways of controlling your streaming music:

1. Use your favourite iPhone app, like Spotify or Apple Music, and control the music with your Gear Fit 2
2. Download Spotify on the Gear Fit 2 and listen to the downloaded music using a bluetooth headphone set

7. Software update in July 2017

8. BIG UPDATE in December 2017

9. How to sync with Strava, Runkeeper and Endomondo as an iPhone user

10. May 2018: UPDATE with new features

I’ll continue making videos about every Gear Fit 2 update, so stay tuned! Please subscribe to my YouTube channel to stay up-to-date.