Customer Ratings & Reviews

Pros Better battery life. Good build quality. Light to wear. Very smooth user experience. Cons Only bixy is available(which I don't use not a bummer) Biggest bummer is Blood oxygen and ECG is only available if you have a latest samsung phone. It doesnt work on any other android or apple device just on samsung phone not even on samsung tablet.

Okay, let me start by prefacing that I already own an Apple Watch Series 4. I own an iPhone 12 Pro, in addition to a Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. I was looking for a smartwatch that I could use with my Note, and the Galaxy Watch Active 2 seemed like a good deal. I have used my Apple Watch since the release of the Series 4, and I have had a good deal of time to compare. First, the good: - Display quality is excellent on the GWA2. It includes an Always-On Display (AOD) option, which allows for quick glancing. The colors are vibrant and the brightness can go quite high. Almost too high at night, though. This is one feature that Samsung always does well on. - Sleep tracking works well and is very useful. It pairs with the Samsung Health app to give a good insight into your sleeping. - Battery life is better than the Apple Watch. With AOD on, I can squeeze 2 days comfortably without charging. I can barely do a single day on the Series 4, and it doesn't even have AOD. - It is comfortable to wear! Honestly, it is a comfortable watch and it doesn't dig into my skin. I also like the round design. - Strong vibration motor. Much stronger than my Apple Watch and I can definitely tell when I have a notification coming in. Now, the not so good: - The software is...well...janky to say the least. It is running Samsung's TizenOS and it is far from the smoothest. Utilizing the turn-dial around the rim of the watch is great in theory, but bad in practice. I constantly accidentally click an item on the watch when I was just trying to scroll. - Poor app support. But this is inherent to TizenOS and the incredibly niche amount of developers who actually make anything for it. Your best bet is built-in Samsung-made applications. - Terrible heart rate (HR) sensor. Look, it works fine if you are still, not moving, and the surface temperature of your arm is not on the cold side. Any other scenario (ie., working out, walking outside while it is cold, etc), and I get a message stating an HR reading was not obtainable. It asked me to reposition the watch and try again, but still no avail. The sensor is reminiscent of old, first-generation smartwatches that first included heart rate sensors. They only worked when perfectly still. On my Apple Watch, I get a reading when moving, working out, sitting still, jumping, whatever. The sensor on it is leaps and bounds ahead of what is on the GWA2, and it's a few generations old! - You are stuck using Bixby. I don't need to say much else. It's Bixby. Yuck. - Voice typing when responding to messages is slow, inaccurate, and makes me want to pull my phone out instead (and sometimes, my hair). - You are limited in the complications you can use for creating watch faces. Actually, the entire watch face creation is just not all that great. It is very limited, especially compared to the AW2. Honestly, if you are satisfied with something that can tell you the time, alert you to notification, and can provide some basic health insights, it's not the worst watch in the world for the money. But if you need something that you will expect to work fast, smooth, and as advertised, I would look elsewhere. It's a very "meh" watch, and it is going right back to Best Buy.

I decided to get off of the apple bandwagon last May and changed over to the pixel phone. I really loved my apple watch, and bought a Galaxy watch. I liked the rotating bezel, but the watch was just too large for me. I stopped wearing it within 2 months. The Active2 is just small enough to be that much more comfortable on my wrist. The 'virtual' bezel took a little getting used to, but became natural after just a short while. I am not a fitness guy, and mainly used the apple watch for siri. So far, bixby is not quite as good, but it does the job well enough. Overall, I am very happy with the Active2. If the voice was a google service I am sure it would rival the apple watch and siri. That is the only reason for 4 stars instead of 5. John W.

Love my watch and it does seem a little behind on calories burned but you just have to turn on the work out tracker when you're working out and also set up your correct body measurements. Then it's usually spot on. I've had the Apple watch too and it's the same issue. The stairs that you've climbed never seem to be accurate but do I really care about that? No. The steps are spot on as well. I visually watch it count my steps on the Samsung health app. What is awesome is now the new bezel feature... Which allows you to quickly access other apps and change the volume with music. The music is awesome too because I connected it to my Spotify account and it will play your Spotify music on the watch when you're away from you phone. The only downside is bixby... Samsung has really gotta work out the kinks on that one... Terrible voice recognition. However, overall I love it! Lots of improvements compared to the last one

Okay. I really, really wanted to love this watch......and I almost do. I am an iPhone user, and am coming from having owned a Garmin 405, an Apple Watch 1, and most recently an Apple Watch 3. I bought this for it's supposed "Active" fitness tracking abilities. But sadly, it is just not quite what it could be, at least when paired with an iPhone. I do get notifications, but cannot interact or respond, which I can live with. It does actually clear notifications nicely. There is NO support for SMS when paired with an iPhone though. Not even notifications! I also cannot push software, or app updates through the phone at all. The only way I have been able to do updates is to disconnect the watch from my phone by turning off Bluetooth, and then connecting the watch directly to my Wi-Fi. This is a pain! My bigger gripe though is about the accuracy of the fitness tracking. The floors climbed is all over the place, and no where near accurate! And worse yet is the calories burned calculation. For example, if you did 2 separate 60 minute cycling workouts, but during one you rode nothing but big climbs with a very high heart rate, and for the other you gently pedaled through a flat park, the calories burned would be the same! After a bit of research, I learned that the Samsung does not utilize your Heart Rate at all for workouts. Just a built in formula. Tell it you are riding a bike, and it says you burn x amount of calories per hour, period. There are videos of people starting a workout, and then taking the watch off and leaving it sitting there burning calories. This is simply sad on a device that has access to my heart rate at all times. Samsung also states that this watch has the ECG capability, but they do not tell you that this is ONLY when paired with a Samsung phone. Got any other phone? No ECG. In the end, there is a lot I love: Very comfortable. Great looking screen. The stats breakdown in the Health App are awesome after a workout. The water lock feature is cool! Except for SMS, the notifications work great. $250 price point is nice Customizable daily goals. Lots of faces available. BUT, I have already ordered the Garmin Fenix 6 Pro, and the Samsung will be going back because of the shortcomings that I just can't seem to get past. Very difficult to update apps and watch software. No SMS notifications. No ECG support. The date insists on displaying in European format! Calories burned does not even factor heart rate. Floors climbed is useless. Very little support for adjusting settings from phone. Bixby has not really worked at all for me. It's a good start, but Samsung is just not quite there if they are calling this an "Active" watch.

I expected more out of smartwatches especially Samsung. Bixby is redundant. Not compatible with Android/Google Wear. Some minor issues still not resolved with Spotify connectivity. But it's good overall. Continuous Heart Rate monitor is really good but sometimes sleep isn't recorded properly. The watch can be a lot better. It has the capability but Samsung got lazy with it. Best Buy curbside pickup however, 4.5 stars!

This watch impressed me for the most part. I was really worried that I would be downgrading coming from a iwatch. With gear app still get my phone calls, text, and app notifications. The only thing Bixby does the quick commands instead of Google.

Just wish it came with Google assistant. Don't really care for the Bixby assistant that comes with

Only complaints are the display doesn't always turn on using the wrist motion, and bixby is kind of unreliable.

This is overall a good watch the only downside is it does not have Google it only has Bixby and we all know Bixby sucks.

I have really enjoyed this product. The only issue if any I could say is it is easy to scratch up the edges of it. Bixby doesn't really do that great with it either. Though, I am not a huge fan of using Bixby. All in all, I have liked this watch a lot though. This was my second Active 2, I previously had the normal black version and they replaced the previous one with this because of my replacement plan and not being able to get Bixby to accept the update. This one I had similar issues, but decided to just stop using Bixby features.