3 features that would actually make me pay for a Samsung Health subscription for my Galaxy Watch – and one big problem it needs to avoid
It is not surprising that fitness companies like the subscription model: this guarantees them an income long after the initial purchase of a smartwatch or a fitness tracker.
Most of the big names in the company now give you the possibility of paying monthly costs to unlock additional information from your health data and additional features for your applications and devices.
The comments made by Samsung’s digital health chief, Dr. Hon Pak, have revealed that a health subscription is also an idea that Samsung “explores”, and it is perhaps something that will be announced alongside the Galaxy Watch 8 or the Galaxy Ring 2.
This would, of course, have training effects for the best Samsung phones and all other devices where you will find the Samsung Health application.
Although I have the impression of being up to the limit with regard to digital subscriptions, there are a few specific ways that Samsung can try to register for another service – but it must hurt.
I can’t wait to improve my health and my physical form, but I don’t really know where to start: YouTube videos and practical articles, including AI coaching and social media influencers, there is an overwhelming amount of advice. What I really need is a source of confidence that will help me with everything, training plans with nutritional advice.
If this is something that Samsung Health can offer, I would plan to pay for it. Whether through the form of videos, personalized guides or something else, I need clarity on what I should do to lead a healthier life.
However, I would like to see real progress as a result of my subscription, whether it’s running faster, or bounce out of bed with additional energy – if not why do I pay? At least, if it is a subscription from one month to another, I will have the opportunity to cancel it if nothing seems to change.
2. Functionalities that really save me
There are a handful of digital subscriptions for which I pay with pleasure, and what they all have in common is that they help me do my work better and more effectively. The subscriptions that save me time or that I can work more intelligently indeed pay for themselves, or even allowing me to save money overall.
Take YouTube Premium, for example. YouTube can of course be used for free, but paying means that I save a lot of time to look at and click on ads, and means that I don’t have to pay for Spotify (because YouTube Music Premium is included).
So what would it look like for a health subscription? Perhaps one who has features comparable to the current application, meditation application and nutritional applications subscriptions, and can consolidate them all.
To soften the agreement even more, how about money on Samsung Wearables? Surely a winner for Samsung.
3. Information on data that is actually insightful
It has become a snapshot for healthy subscriptions to provide more advanced information on your data: often it is a vague promise that often does not represent much. Garmin Connect +, for example, promises something called “active intelligence” that apparently gives users “of personalized ideas and suggestions” (powered using AI, of course).
I will welcome truly insightful information very well, although nobody seems to be quite solved this problem. Fitness trackers have a multitude of data every day, a large part of which is never properly examined, such as photo trains saved with cloud storage.
Give me the advice and advice that are really useful please, Samsung. How much is each game at 5 years that increases my physical form? What days do I need more motivation to exercise? Do I have to drink more water if I fall asleep earlier? Help give meaning to the statistics that I accumulate, and I could register.
What Samsung has to avoid: trapping users
Something that scares me to register for another digital subscription is the fear that I am locked in another product and another ecosystem – unable to leave unless I want to throw years of data and features on which I came to count.
This is something you may have seen in the last series of Black mirror: A couple trapped in a subscription that gradually adds more and more advertising (do you, Netflix?) And is deleting more and more features. The experience becomes really horrible – but not to subscribe is even worse.
Samsung Health already supports services such as Android’s Health Connect, and the data from all the extras that a subscription offers should not be locked – but available to export and use elsewhere, and in other formats.
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