Smart & Connected Life > Smart Watches & Wearables The Best 10 Galaxy Watch Apps For 2023 Use these apps to track your run, display reminders when you need them, and help get you where you're going By Ryan Dube Ryan Dube Facebook Twitter Writer University of Maine Ryan Dube is a freelance contributor to Lifewire and former Managing Editor of MakeUseOf, senior IT Analyst, and an automation engineer. lifewire's editorial guidelines Updated on January 11, 2023 Reviewed by Christine Baker Reviewed by Christine Baker Christine Baker is a marketing consultant with experience working for a variety of clients. Her expertise includes social media, web development, and graphic design. lifewire's editorial guidelines Tweet Share Email Tweet Share Email Smart Watches & Wearables Eco Tech Electric Vehicles Working From Home Headphones & Ear Buds Smart Home Smart Watches & Wearables Travel Tech Connected Car Tech iPods & MP3 Players If you're only using a smart watch to get the time, you're missing out on a lot of the capabilities you paid for. You don't need to use 47 apps all the time, but just a few key apps can help you day-to-day and make you feel like you're living in the future. These apps are compatible with the Galaxy Watch, Galaxy Watch Active, Galaxy Fit, Gear S3, Gear S2, and Gear Sport. 01 of 10 Hands Free Driving Directions: Navigation What We Like Extremely useful. Never get lost. Accurate directions. What We Don't Like Standalone GPS mode drains the battery. Awkward watch interface. The navigation app is probably one of the most useful Galaxy Watch apps of all. It's especially useful when you're walking the city streets and need an easy way to navigate to a new location. It works in concert with the Gear Navigator app installed on your phone. This is especially useful while using walking navigation mode in Google Maps. Your watch will provide you with turn by turn directions at every street corner. Download Navigation for Android 02 of 10 Track Your Time: Timer What We Like Simple to use. Convenient timer available any time. Many different uses. What We Don't Like Limited features. Very simple graphics. No way to log timed events. There are many times throughout the day when a timer can come in handy. Maybe you've ordered a pizza and need to wait 15 minutes before picking it up. Or maybe you're working hard on a project and need to remember a meeting in 20 minutes. Whatever the reason, it can be very convenient to tap your watch and get a reminder whenever you need. 03 of 10 Improve Productivity: Calendar What We Like Easy to view agenda. Quickly add new events. Doesn't require a phone app. What We Don't Like Limited calendar features. Awkward to type events on watch. Difficult to read events on watch. The Calendar app that comes on the Galaxy Watch is an absolute necessity. It syncs with your Google Calendar so that you can have your daily schedule easily within reach, even when your phone isn't. Tap on any of the calendar days to view the daily agenda. You can scroll up and down through your schedule by swiping your finger up or down on the watch face. Then you can tap on the event to view the details. Download Calendar for Android 04 of 10 Best for Runners: Map My Run What We Like Effective distance reporting. Integrated mapping tool. Log exercise to your account. What We Don't Like Many features require internet access. Can drain the watch battery. May not last your entire run. Map My Run is offered as a standalone app from Under Armor. It's a useful app for tracking and logging your running sessions, with very little effort. With a Galaxy Watch, you can install the Map My Run app on your watch and leave your phone in the car while you head out on your run. To use the app on your phone for logging a run, you'll need to turn on Location in your watch settings. Once you do, you can start the run from your watch and it'll log: DistanceCalories burnedPace (including max and average)DurationHeart rate (including average)Max paceLocation and path of run Once you return to wherever you left your phone, you can save the logged running session to your phone, and then to your cloud Map My Run account. Download Map My Run for Android 05 of 10 Monitor Your Health: Heart Rate Graphic What We Like Accurate heart rate monitoring. Logs heart rate history. Aesthetic heart rate graph. What We Don't Like Very short heart rate log. Simple app with only one purpose. Not 100% medically accurate. There are a number of heart rate monitoring apps available for the Galaxy Watch, but one of the best is the Heart Rate Graphic app. It's one of the few that offers not just your present active heart rate, but also a log of your heart rate over the last 240 seconds (4 minutes). The app displays your active heart rate and total time the app has been logging your heart rate. Under this is the screen-wide chart that displays the four-minute log of your heart rate. It's a useful way to make sure your heart rate stays in a target zone during your workouts. Download Heart Rate Graphic for Free 06 of 10 Track Exercise: GymRun Workout Diary What We Like Quick to log exercise. Long term log. Built-in timer. What We Don't Like Limited number of exercises. Awkward to use during workouts. No website option. The GymRun smartphone app is a great app all on its own. It lets you quickly log your gym workouts, regardless of the exercise. The companion GymRun Workout Diary app for your Galaxy Watch is a useful add-on to the app. It lets you leave your phone in your gym bag, and you can log your entire workout right on your watch. The main screen offers three families of exercises to choose from: Chest and BicepsLat and TricepsLegs and Abs When you tap on any one of these, you can swipe your finger across the watch screen to scroll through the available exercises. Once you choose the exercise, you can set the weight and number of reps you'd like to do. Set the length of time per exercise, and the watch will count down the time as you exercise, and vibrate when you're done. This app is not free; it costs $4.99. Download GymRun for Android 07 of 10 Stop Insomnia: G'Night Sleep Smart What We Like Accurate sleep log. Sensitive sensors log every movement. Identifies sleep problems. What We Don't Like Can drain watch battery. Awkward to wear watch during sleep. Not 100% medically accurate. It's not always easy to understand your sleep patterns and why you're not sleeping well, but the G'Night Sleep Smart app can help. Just launch the app before you go to bed, set your alarm, and start the sleep monitor. The app will show a quick chart as it starts monitoring your activity and heart rate. As you go to sleep, the face will go dark, but the watch will be watching you carefully for signs of restlessness or light sleep. Over time, you can review your sleep patterns in the app. It'll help you gauge what bed times and wake times result in the deepest sleep. Download G'Night Sleep Smart for Free 08 of 10 For Your Smart Home: TizMo (WeMo Control) What We Like Convenient control of smart home. Supports many devices. Easy to use interface. What We Don't Like Wi-Fi can drain watch battery. My not support your devices. Need to be on same Wi-Fi network. TizMo is a useful app if your house is loaded with lots of WeMo smart home devices like plugs, switches, and lights. WeMo devices connect directly to your wireless network rather than using a hub, so connecting to them with an app is very simple. The TizMo Galaxy Watch app does require you to enable Wi-Fi on your smart watch. But once you do, the TizMo scans your network and identifies all connected WeMo devices you can control from the app. Controls are very simple. You just swipe your finger up or down to find the WeMo device and then tap the switch to toggle the device on or off. 09 of 10 Best for Automation: Triggers (IFTTT) What We Like Versatile app. Integrates with many smart home devices. Use to control cloud services. What We Don't Like Complex to configure. Requires an IFTTT account. Not ideal for novice users. Triggers is a Galaxy Watch app that takes a little more effort than other apps to set up, but once you do you can control far more devices in your home than any other app. It costs $1.99, but it's well worth the price. The Triggers app lets you set up your watch so you can trigger what's called a "webhook" in the web-based IFTTT service. IFTTT is a very simple cloud-based automation website that lets you connect many devices and services that you can control remotely through the service. Once you've set up your free IFTTT account, type webhooks into the search field, click on the Webhooks link, and set up your free webhooks account. Once you do, you'll see a special URL with a long code at the end of it. Make a note of that code. Next, set up the IFTTT Triggers app. When you open the app, click on the menu icon at the upper right corner and click Set IFTTT Key. In this area, enter the long code from the end of the URL your recorded above. Now you're ready to create triggers in IFTTT that you can trigger with your Galaxy Watch! Here's how you set up IFTTT triggers to control from your watch: In IFTTT, click on My Applets and then click on New Applet.Click on This, and type Webhooks into the search field, and click on the Webhooks link.Click on Receive a web request.Give the Event a name. For example to turn on the office light, name it "Office Light".Click on That, and then search for any service you want to trigger. If you want to trigger a WeMo device, you can search for WeMo and choose what kind of WeMo device you want to trigger. IFTTT is integrated with a whole family of smart home devices you can set up to control from your watch. Using an IFTTT Webhook integrated with the Trigger app on your phone and your watch, you can control almost anything with your Galaxy Watch. Download Triggers (IFTTT) for Android 10 of 10 Never Forget: Gear Voice Memo What We Like Very convenient. Audio avoid awkward typing. Many different uses. What We Don't Like Memos take up watch storage. No way to categorize memos. Can't offload memos to phone. Do you have a bad memory? You don't have to depend on your faulty memory when you own a Galaxy Watch. With the Voice Memo app, you can tap a record button and quickly record a memo that gets saved to your watch. Each memo is stored in a list that you can swipe through to play it again later. Record a grocery list at home that you can listen to at the store. Or record someone telling you their address or phone number so you can save it later when you have time. If you turn on the Speech-to-text feature, the app will instantly convert your recordings to a text note that you can view later whenever you like. Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know! Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day Subscribe Tell us why! Other Not enough details Hard to understand Submit