Samsung Gear® S2 For Dummies®
Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com
Copyright © 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Media and software compilation copyright © 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published simultaneously in Canada
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2016944311
ISBN: 978-1-119-27998-3
ISBN 978-1-119-27999-0 (ebk); ISBN ePDF 978-1-119-28000-2 (ebk)
Welcome to Samsung Gear S2 For Dummies, which is your guide to using the Gear S2 smartwatch in your everyday life.
You may have picked up this book because you’ve already purchased a Samsung Gear S2 (congratulations!) or you’re thinking about buying the Gear S2 thanks to all the interest and great reviews from the computing media. Either way, this book offers a great way to learn about Samsung’s cutting-edge wearable device.
Chances are that you’re brand new to wearable computing. You may have been interested in wearing a smartwatch, but up until the Gear S2, you haven’t seen a smartwatch that has interested you. Or you may already have a Gear S2 but want to know everything there is to know about it.
This is why this book is a soup-to-nuts presentation of how to set up the Gear S2, use it with your Android smartphone, and find apps that you can download and use to get the most use and fun from your smartwatch.
Unlike other books that require you to read an entire chapter in one sitting to understand what’s going on, you can open this book anywhere and read about the topic that interests you at the moment. That is, you can search the book for information you need, read the page that has your answers, and then get back to work (or play).
You may notice that there are sidebars stippled throughout the book and you may run into one or more on the page you’re reading. I cover the different types of sidebars later in this introduction.
I also use some basic technical conventions in this book that you should know about so you aren’t confused or surprised by them:
www.dummies.com.Within this book, you may note that some web addresses break across two lines of text. If you’re reading this book in print and want to visit one of these web pages, simply key in the web address exactly as it’s noted in the text, pretending as though the line break doesn’t exist. If you’re reading this as an ebook, you’ve got it easy: Just click the web address to be taken directly to the web page.
Alas, computing technology isn’t sophisticated enough (or small enough) yet for the Gear S2 to do everything on its own. You need to use a smartphone running at least Android 5.0 (Lollipop) with your Gear S2, and by the time you read this, you may be able to use the Gear S2 with an iPhone as well.
Though this book tells you how to use the Samsung Gear Manager app on your smartphone to work with your Gear S2, this book doesn’t tell you how to use your smartphone. You should be able to find many good books for your specific smartphone and the operating system the smartphone uses, including books from Wiley, the publisher of this book.
The Gear S2 may be the first piece of wearable technology you’ve ever owned, so this book dishes out information about how to use the Gear S2 in easily digestible chunks, enabling you to get answers to your questions fast and then get back to using your Gear S2 to receive calls, text messages, and email messages, monitor your health, and much more.
The Tip icon points out insights or helpful suggestions for making life with your Gear S2 easier.
Remember icons draw your attention to some particular information to keep in mind.
The Technical Stuff icon marks information of a highly technical nature that you can normally skip over.
The Warning icon tells you to watch out! It marks important information that may save you headaches, not to mention your data, when you use the Gear S2.
I offer some extra content that you won’t find in this book. To find some tips and tricks for making life easier with the Gear S2, check out the this book’s Cheat Sheet, which you can find by going to www.dummies.com and typing “Samsung Gear S2 For Dummies Cheat Sheet” into the Search box.
You may also find updates to this book, if I have any, at www.dummies.com/extras/gears2. Also keep in mind that Google continually updates the Gear S2 hardware and software, so you can keep your book up-to-date by checking for updates.
This book is yours, so you can annotate and augment the text in any way you want — with a highlighter pen, by writing notes in the margins, or by placing bookmarks at several strategic locations throughout the book so that you can return to those places quickly.
If you’ve just purchased the Gear S2 and want to get grounded in what your new smartwatch is all about, flip to Chapter 1. But if you can’t wait to get the Gear S2 out of the box and start playing with it, flip the pages to Chapter 2 so that you can set up the Gear S2, put it on your wrist, and start exploring your new smartwatch.
Part 1
IN THIS PART …
Learning what the Samsung Gear S2 is and what you can do with it
Getting familiar with the Gear S2, including how to fit the smartwatch on your wrist properly
Finding out how to charge the Gear S2 when the battery runs low
Changing Gear S2 settings and the watch face
Setting up the Gear Manager app on your Android smartphone and using Gear Manager with your Gear S2
Chapter 1
IN THIS CHAPTER
Introducing the Samsung Gear S2
Understanding smartwatch history and the Internet of Things
Learning what you can do with the Gear S2
Reviewing the two Gear S2 model similarities and differences
Discovering what’s in the Gear S2 box
Congratulations on your purchase of the Samsung Gear S2. How does it feel to be on the cutting edge?
The fact that you possess a Gear S2 means that you don’t think smartwatches are a fad or just plain unnecessary. You know that the Gear S2 is an easy way for you to get information you need quickly, such as the time and place of your next appointment, by looking at the Gear S2 on your wrist instead of fumbling for the smartphone in your pocket.
In this chapter, I start by giving you a (very) brief history of smartwatch development. Next, you learn about how the Gear S2 fits into the larger ecosystem of connected devices better known as the Internet of Things. You also get an overview of the two Gear S2 models and how they compare.
Then I tell you about the issues involved with pairing your Gear S2 with your Android smartphone. Next, you get to know the Gear S2 apps that are preinstalled on the smartwatch. You also learn how to shop for Gear S2 accessories. Finally, this chapter shows you all the good stuff that’s in your Gear S2 box.
Smartwatches aren’t a new phenomenon. In January 1946, newspaper readers first saw popular comic strip detective Dick Tracy use his new “wrist radio,” and later a “wrist TV,” to fight crime. (You remember newspapers: those large rectangular sheets of paper with writing on them.) You may have seen smartwatches used in such cartoons as The Jetsons and Inspector Gadget growing up.
What’s more, Samsung was an early developer of watch phones with the bulky but still impressive looking SPH-WP10 watch phone the company introduced way back in 1999. (You can read more about this watch at http://www.phonearena.com/news/Did-you-know-that-Samsung-announced-a-watch-phone-in-1999_id69376.) As with many early versions of hardware and software that later changed our lives, the 1999 Samsung smartwatch didn’t click with consumers. (There’s no word on how popular it was with secret agents.)
Today’s kids don’t have to read newspapers (not that they do, anyway) or watch cartoons to get an idea of what smartwatches are all about — nowadays, smartwatches really do exist and are maturing fast. I say maturing because despite the fact that there isn’t a “killer app” as of this writing that would cause people to buy a smartwatch just for that app, today’s smartwatches do useful things.
Modern smartwatches also look like watches — that is, they’re either round or square in shape and are similar in thickness to what you find in analog or digital watches.
Smartwatches have also benefited from the growth of a network of physical objects including devices, buildings, vehicles, appliances, and even clothes that can exchange data with one another. You may have heard the name of this network bandied about in the media: The Internet of Things, also known by its acronym IoT. Technology companies are working fast to connect all your devices together so that they can communicate with each other and (ostensibly) make our lives easier. It makes sense that you’ll want to see messages from IoT devices both on your smartphone and by holding up your wrist and looking at your smartwatch.
Samsung is a conglomerate that produces a number of consumer electronics including TVs, refrigerators, and even washers and dryers. You see where I’m going: Samsung wants to give you not only the complete experience of pairing its Galaxy smartphones, Galaxy Tab tablets, and Gear smartwatches, but it also wants to use the Gear S2 to entice you to buy Samsung everything.
As part of this “Samsung, Samsung everywhere!” strategy, Samsung has taken a page out of Apple’s playbook and decided to support its own smartwatch operating system … sort of. Samsung is a lead developer in the open-source Tizen operating system (OS) and uses Tizen in its TVs, in a few smartphone models, and, most important, on the Gear S2.
The Gear S2 comes in two models: the “standard” Gear S2, which is just called the Gear S2, and the Gear S2 Classic. Both models have many of the same features:
So what are the differences between the two models? I’m glad you asked.
The “standard” Gear S2 has a more streamlined design with a plastic wrist strap that Samsung calls Elastomer as well as a flat bezel. The Gear S2 comes in only two colors: Silver and Dark Gray, as you can see in Figure 1-1.
Source: http://www.samsung.com/us/explore/gear-s2/?cid=ppc-
FIGURE 1-1: The Silver Gear S2 on the left and the Dark Gray Gear S2 on the right.
If you already purchased your Gear S2 at your favorite data carrier, such as Verizon or Sprint, you already know the kicker: You can purchase a 3G or 4G version of the Gear S2 so that you can make voice calls, text, send email, and receive notifications through your phone without a smartphone nearby.
As a result, the Gear S2 is a little heavier than its Classic counterpart because it contains a speaker, an electronic SIM card, and a 300mAh battery — 50mAh more than the Gear S2 Classic.
The Gear S2 Classic is so named because the design of the watch evokes a more classic watch look. For example, the bezel has little serrated “teeth,” which you also find on many standard watches. The Gear S2 Classic rounds out the classic look by sporting a leather wrist strap.
The Gear S2 Classic comes in three colors: black, platinum, and 18-karat rose gold. In addition to the slick black look, you can also purchase a black 3G version so that you can communicate with the Internet using your carrier’s data network. (Sorry, there is no 4G version as of this writing.)
The platinum and rose-gold Gear S2 models, shown in Figure 1-2 along with the black model, come in Bluetooth only and will set you back another $100. The rose-gold model has an added benefit: You can impress others by telling them that the 18-karat rose gold gets its color through a combination of three metals: 75 percent gold, 21 percent copper, and 4 percent silver.
Source: http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/gear-s2/
FIGURE 1-2: The black, rose gold, and platinum Gear S2 Classic models.
Like the mystery of where your missing socks went after you put them in the dryer, the Gear S2 Classic doesn’t allow you to connect with the outside digital world through a data carrier’s wireless network. Instead, you have to use the Gear S2 Classic’s Bluetooth connection to connect with your Android smartphone.
You’ll still be able to get notifications of voice calls, text messages, and email messages on your Gear S2 Classic, but you’ll have to pull out your smartphone to take your call or read your messages. This is why the Gear S2 Classic has a 250mAh battery and is a little lighter than its “standard” Gear S2 counterpart.
So the Gear S2 hasn’t quite reached the standards set by Dick Tracy’s wrist radio/TV. That is, you can’t use the Gear S2 by itself to get the most out of it — you need to use your Gear S2 with your Android smartphone. Samsung says Gear S2 supports most Android smartphones that run Android 4.4 (also known as KitKat) or later, and your phone needs to have at least 1.5GB of memory.
If you’re unsure about whether the Gear S2 supports your phone, here’s the short answer: If you have a Samsung smartphone running KitKat or later, you’re good. You can do anything you want with your Gear S2, including sync your email between your phone’s email account and your Gear S2, as well as share the Wi-Fi profile with your phone on your Gear S2. (If you’re excited about Wi-Fi profile sharing, hold tight: I cover that topic in more detail in Chapter 4.)
If you don’t own a Samsung smartphone, connecting your smartphone to your Gear S2 is a more interesting experience. For example, if you don’t have a Samsung smartphone, you can’t sync your email messages between your phone and your watch. Other features such as Wi-Fi profile sharing and receiving text messages may also be limited (or not work at all). If you’re not sure whether you have these capabilities, you should pick up your smartphone and give Samsung a call at 1-800-SAMSUNG (that’s 1-800-726-7864).
Your Gear S2 comes with a number of preinstalled apps that enable you to do things on the smartwatch that you may find useful. Table 1-1 presents a list of preinstalled apps that you can use on your Gear S2:
TABLE 1-1 Pre-Installed Gear S2 Apps
|
Icon |
App |
|
|
The Messages app allows you to view messages and then either type a reply or call the messenger back. |
|
|
The Phone app shows you notifications for incoming calls so that you can grab your smartphone and take the call (or not). The app also synchronizes the Contacts list on your smartphone so that you can initiate a call from the Contacts list or just tap the phone number on your watch. If you have the “standard” Gear S2 or the black Gear S2 classic supported by a data carrier, you’ll also be able to respond and talk on your watch. Otherwise, you need to get out your smartphone to receive your call. |
|
|
S Health tracks your physical activity and measures your pulse while you move by using the sensors on the back of the Gear S2. You learn how to set up and use S Health in Chapter 9. |
|
|
The Nike+ Running app uses sensors on the back of the Gear S2 to monitor your vital signs as you run and keeps track of your statistics so that you can improve your running performance. |
|
|
The Settings app allows you to view and change Gear S2 settings, which you learn more about in Chapter 3. |
|
|
The Schedule app shows you your upcoming appointment as well as a brief note about your following appointment, if there is one. |
|
|
S Voice is the default voice command app that lets you tell your Gear S2 what to do. You learn how to make the Gear S2 obey your every command in Chapter 8. |
|
|
The Weather app shows you the current weather information for your location. You can also add another location and view the current conditions in that location. |
|
|
Alarm is what you expect: You can add an alarm so that your watch will make noise when the alarm is triggered. If you want to postpone the alarm for five minutes, you can activate the snooze option. You can also delete an alarm when you have no further use for it. |
|
|
Timer allows you to set the amount of time for the countdown, and when the timer reaches zero, the watch makes noise to let you know your time is up. |
|
|
Stopwatch lets you time an event. You can start the stopwatch, pause it, restart it, and stop it. You can also view a stopwatch log so that you can compare times from previous events. |
|
|
World Clock allows you to add one or more cities around the world and show the current time in the city or cities. |
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|
Bloomberg shows you a summary of your stock portfolio and gives you a recap of the latest news from the business world. |
|
|
CNN is a popular online news source (not so much on TV), and you can have CNN deliver up-to-the-minute news updates to your Gear S2. |
|
|
ESPN shows you a summary of the latest sports scores and news. You need to install the ESPN Companion for Gear app on your smartphone to use the ESPN app on your Gear S2. |
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|
News Briefing is a news aggregator from Flipboard and provides you with a summary of the latest news. Swipe up and down on the screen to view leading news stories in a variety of categories. |
|
|
Music Player lets you control and play music not only on the Gear S2 but also on your smartphone. |
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Samsung Milk Music is Samsung’s streaming music service that you can use to play music on not only your Gear S2 but also your smartphone. |
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|
Gallery allows you to view images you’ve captured on your Gear S2. You can capture an image by holding down the Home button and then swiping left or right on the screen. |
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|
Buddy is an app that allows you to select your favorite contacts from your Contacts list. Within the Buddy app, you can tap your buddy to quickly call or send a message to that person. |
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|
Email is a straightforward app: It synchronizes with the email accounts on your smartphone and then displays a brief summary of the email message on the screen. Tap the summary on the screen to read the entire message and reply to it by either speaking or typing your reply on the Gear S2. |
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|
Find My Phone is a useful little app to find your phone. You open the app, tap Start, and then listen for your smartphone making noise. The smartphone screen turns on, too. |
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Maps shows you your current location on a very small map. You can also search for a specific location and for businesses or features near you, such as the nearest lake, so that you can enjoy a day out. |
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Voice Memo lets you record a voice memo on your Gear S2 that you can play back later. You can also save the voice memo as a text file to read. |
Samsung loves to provide you with options to personalize your devices, including the Gear S2. All you have to do is visit the Gear S2 accessories website on your computer or smartphone at http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/wearable-tech-accessories. The Wearable Tech Accessories page on the Samsung website (see Figure 1-3) shows you a list of bands that you can purchase to replace your current band.
Source: http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/wearable-tech-accessories?filter=smartwatchbands
FIGURE 1-3: Samsung has seven replacement bands to choose from.
The Gear S2 model you have determines the watch straps you can purchase. If you have a Gear S2 Classic, you can choose only a brown or gray leather band. The other bands are for the plain old Gear S2. Granted, Samsung has pretty slim pickings when it comes to bands, but plenty of other bands are available. Just type Samsung watch bands into your favorite search engine and enjoy visiting online stores just waiting to sell you watch straps.
If you’re reading this book, chances are that you’ve received (or picked up) your Gear S2 already and you’ve probably opened up the box with the excitement you remember as a kid opening up a gift for yourself. But if you’re reading this book wondering what you’ll get in the box, or if you’re waiting for my permission to open the box, keep reading! Here’s what you find inside:
Figure 1-4 contains a photo of all the stuff in the box that I received with my Gear S2 Classic.
FIGURE 1-4: All the stuff that comes in the box.
Chapter 2
IN THIS CHAPTER
Learning about the hardware features of the Gear S2
Charging the Gear S2
Starting up the Gear S2 and performing the initial setup
Putting the Gear S2 on your wrist and changing wrist straps
Turning off the Gear S2
Okay, you’ve taken everything out of the Gear S2 box. It’s time to turn on the watch and start playing, right? Uh, no.
The Gear S2 battery isn’t fully charged when you take it out of the box because the battery was tested before it was placed in the box. So the first thing you should do is check the watch and make sure that the device looks good. Remove the plastic adhesive coverings and look for scratches or any other outer signs of wear and tear that your brand-new device shouldn’t have.
In this chapter, I start by reviewing the hardware features of the Gear S2. Next, you learn how to charge the Gear S2 to get the battery life up to 100 percent. Then you find out how to start up the Gear S2 and set up your smartwatch for the first time. Finally, I show you how to put the Gear S2 on your wrist and adjust it for optimum comfort. In case you don’t like the large band, I show you how to swap out the large band for the smaller one that comes in the box.
If you do find there are scratches or any other defects in your Gear S2 or related components such as the charger, your Gear S2 is covered by a limited warranty. Call Samsung at 1-800-SAMSUNG (that’s 1-800-726-7864) to talk to a real person about your problems, obtain a new Gear S2 or related components, and return the broken equipment to Samsung.
