Two days ago, Samsung started pushing out a major software update for the Gear S2 in Asia, Europe, North America and South America. The upgrade weighs in at approximately 60MB and bundles a plethora of exciting new features, as noted in our preview, including social sharing for activities and a revamped Contacts application. However, one fantastic piece of functionality that the South Korean company failed to mention in the changelog is that the wearable now supports sleep tracking.
Arguably, a fully-fledged sleep tracker should have been bundled on the Gear S2 from the word go, but it's nice to see Samsung respond to customer feedback and implement it in a somewhat timely manner. The service utilizes the device's integrated heart rate sensor to detect three different stages of sleep — restless, light and motionless. It then analyses this data and puts it through a complex algorithm to calculate the total time slept and the amount of calories burnt doing so.
After having a little time to play around with it, I've found the sleep tracker to be very accurate. I'm especially fond of having the facility to see the total time slept on my wrist, but being able to open the S Health application on my smartphone to view a comprehensive database consisting of my sleep history since I started using the feature. There's even a Trends option that shows me any similarities between my recorded sleeps.
If you own a Gear S2 running the latest firmware (R730XXU2DPFB), be sure to give sleep tracking a try today and let us know what you think of it in the comments section below.
