SAMSUNG Galaxy Watch 4, 44mm Smartwatch with ECG Monitor Tracker for Health Fitness Running Sleep Cycles GPS Fall Detection LTE US Version, Green…

Would like instructions to set up watch. None with product.

I’m old enough to remember the distant days of the PDA before smartphones – the Apple MessagePad and Palm 500 could teach modern designers a lesson. And I loved my Casio DBC-150 Databank!

OOB Experience

I read everything I could find in preparation for my new watch. I even downloaded a PDF copy of the User Guide. I absorbed many tips, such as not bothering with Google’s Wear OS app because Samsung requires their proprietary version as well as a watch-specific driver.

Of course, nothing would be as comprehensive as what came in the box…

Figure 1: The refurbished package

Ah well. The proprietary charger base is a genuine Samsung and I saved $80 buying a refurbished unit.

The charger base clearly states “Input: 1 amp” BTW. So I connected an old USB wall plug rated for 1 amp (you haven’t been throwing your old chargers away, have you?). Putting the watch atop the base resulted in a small dot of light in the center of the screen then an announcement of “53%”.

The watch itself appears to be in like-new condition, which pleases me. Now to refer to that 76-page PDF manual I downloaded yesterday…

After a half hour elapsed, I checked the watch and the display was still blank. Moving it confirmed neither the watch nor the base was warm to the touch but the display now reported 80% charged. Returning to the watch after a full hour, I found the display still blank but a jostle revealed 98% charged. That implies I should expect probably 2 hours to fully charge the watch. Curiously, it never did alert once 100% charged – I checked it again after another half hour and had to jiggle it, so in the future I’ll set the display on during charging (“desk mode”).

After charging, the manual says to “wear the watch” and actually has instructions for strapping it around your wrist. I choose to interpret this as ensuring the biometric sensors are ready to send data during setup…

Setting Up My Samsung Galaxy Watch 4

I’m going to follow the instructions in that PDF User Guide:

1) Ensure Bluetooth is active on your phone. I’m using a T-Mobile Revvl V+ 5G running Android 11.
2) Turn on the watch.
3) Launch the Galaxy Wearable app on your phone.
4) Pair the watch to your phone over Bluetooth.
5) Follow instructions on screen

Note the watch will truly do NOTHING until you successfully set it up via the Samsung Wearables app. I used my Google account to create a Samsung account and was extremely patient – the initial search for the watch took over 5 minutes! Sadly, the watch would display the Bluetooth pairing code at about 23% into the process then when Samsung Wearables reached 85% it would begin searching for devices to connect again and fail to find anything. Infinite loop.

So I cancelled the Samsung Wearables app, powered off the watch and started over.

I decided to try pairing the watch with the phone first using the System Bluetooth utilities. It just says “pairing” and never completes.

But third time was the charm running the Samsung Wearables app. It took a very long time to finally reach the point where I could download the firmware update to the watch. That took another half hour and the battery was down to 71%.

I transferred over a couple of music files and over 50 pictures just because, plus several watch faces from Facer so I could try puttering with the watch format but I ended up using the standard My Photo+ watch face with a background image of an old “Please Stand By” TV test pattern instead of Facer (uninstalled).

So far I’ve changed the following:

• Customized the “My Photo+” watchface with one of the pictures I copied.
• Notifications: Show when phone not in use with everything turned off except Google Assistant, Google Messages, Phone and Wireless Emergency Alerts. Advanced Notification Settings has only Notification Indicator and Show with Details turned on.
• Sound Mode is set to Vibrate Only, Short and Strong, Basic (for Call and Notifications). System Vibration is turned on but the only System Sounds enabled are Charging & Dialing Keypad.
• Display is set to Auto Brightness with 30 seconds of inactivity and everything turned off except Show Charging Info. Note I also turned on Greyscale under Visibility Enhancements because my watch face is an old “Please Stand By” analog TV test pattern…
• Under Samsung Health I’ve turned off everything I could and set everything else to Manual except for heart rate at 10 minute intervals. But I can’t figure out how to turn off the step counter!
• Advanced Features I left as the defaults but turning off all Gestures except Remote Connection.
• Under Battery, Power Saving mode is NOT turned on.
• Under Apps, I know I’ve added Keep Notes, Maps (both synced with the equivalent on my phone), Messages ( so I show 2 apps with the same name!), Ride with GPS (which I haven’t signed up for yet!), Wrist Camera (to remote control the phone camera – free trial) and Google GBoard (which doesn’t show as an app).
• Manage Content has Auto Sync turned off.
• Mobile Plan never gets past “Connecting to your Service Provider” – probably because the watch is a refurbished AT&T device and I’m on T-Mobile?
• General settings include Touch Bezel On, default Text To Speech, Samsung Keyboard has defaults except sound off and vibration on BUT the default keyboard is now set to GBoard
• Accessibility is all defaults except I have Greyscale turned on as mentioned above. I may unset that for use with Wrist Camera.
• Account and Backup has both my Google account and the Samsung account I created from it. Auto Backup is turned off.
• Watch Software Update took a very long time but only needed to be done once. Note apps had to be updated after the watch firmware was updated.
• About Watch details show model SM-R875U with 7.43GB storage still available.
• Tips and User Manual can’t find the user manual! (“Sorry, your request cannot be processed.”) Good thing I found it online!

On the watch itself I tapped the Settings gear to bring up Connections (which doesn’t appear in the Samsung Wearables app on the phone) and set Bluetooth on, WiFi off and NFC off. Note “AT&T NumberSync” is also displayed (whatever that is). I only enabled WiFi Auto while updating the firmware and apps. So far the battery is showing 82% remaining after 6 hours runtime. After 14 hours it was down to 53%. Second day has 80% left after 8 hours and 53% after 18 hours. Usable.

My favorite feature so far is being able to dictate text into a Keep note. I need to learn GBoard gesture typing, though – silent and faster!

I decided to buy the Wrist Camera app ($4.99 upgrade). It’s nice being able to use the watch as a viewfinder as well as remote control for the phone’s camera, especially since my phone case folds over the aperture! If I ever record a YouTube video I can see it coming in very handy.

Edit 04/18/22
After a month’s use I’m getting 2 full days per charge with the following settings:

Watch face set to Analog Dashboard with Complications of Reminders, Messages, Calendar and Voice Recorder.

Connections
Bluetooth On and paired with Skullcandy earbuds
AT&T NumberSync untouched
WiFi On (auto)
NFC Off
Disconnection Alerts Vibrate
Airplane Mode Off
Mobile Networks Always Off

Notifications
Show phone notifications on watch / Show Alerts when phone not in use
Mute Notifications on phone is Off
Do Not Disturb is Off
Notification Indicator is On
Read Notifications Aloud is On
Show with Details is On
Turn on screen is Off
Turn on for new apps is Off
Wireless Emergency Alerts / Allow Alerts is On

Sounds and Vibration
Sound Mode = Vibrate
Vibration = Short and Strong
Call Vibration = Basic Call
Notification Vibration = Basic
Volume:
Ringtone = Off, Media = 75%, Notifications = Off, System = Off, Bixby = 50%
Ringtone = Classic
Notification Sound = Soft Chime
System Vibration = On
System Sounds:
Ticking = Off, Hourly Chime = Off, Touch = Off, Unlock = Off, Charging = On, Dialing Keypad = On
Display:
Brightness = Auto Brightness, Always-On Display = Off, Screen Wake-up = Raise Wrist to wake and Touch Screen to wake both Off
Show Media Controls = Off
Screen Timeout = 30 seconds
Show Last App within 20 seconds
Font: Font Style = Default, Font Size = Medium
Touch Sensitivity = Off
Show Charging Info = On
Samsung Health
Measurement: Heart rate every 10 minutes while still, Stress = Manual Only, Blood Oxygen during sleep = Off, Snore Detection = Off, Auto Detect Workouts = Off, Inactive Time Alerts = Off
Advanced Features: Water Lock = Off, Bedtime Mode = Off, Theater Mode = Off, SOS and Customize Keys = untouched, Gestures are all Off
Battery: Power Saving = Off, Watch Only = Off
Apps managed from Samsung Wearables app on phone
General: Touch bezel = On, Text-To-Speech left as defaults, Input left at defaults except Default Keyboard = GBoard, Orientation = Left wrist
Accessibility: TalkBack = Off
Visibility Enhancements
Magnification = Off
Font Size = Medium
Greyscale = Off
Color Inversion = Off
Add Color Filter = Off
Location = On, Improve Accuracy = On

Charging from an 18000mAh power bank on the 5v/1amp port required less than 2 hours from 14%.