The Apple Watch has become a comprehensive wellness tracker and fitness monitor over the last decade, gaining new capabilities with each passing year, such as nighttime temperature sensing and performance metrics like ground contact time for runners.
But there’s one big area where it still falls behind rival trackers: recovery and readiness. While Apple provides health trends and highlights, it still lacks a score or rating that ties all those metrics together to paint a picture of your current state. Oura, Garmin and Fitbit trackers have offered this for years, and soon enough Samsung will too. The smartphone giant is launching a new feature called My Vitality Score in its Samsung Health app later this year.
The score collates sleep, activity, resting heart rate and heart rate variability data to determine your physical and mental readiness, much like Oura’s Readiness score, Fitbit’s Daily Readiness rating and Garmin’s Body Battery. It’ll be compatible with the company’s upcoming Galaxy Ring and its line of Galaxy smartwatches.
Samsung isn’t breaking new ground with My Vitality Score, but the addition should make Samsung’s wearables more comprehensive by filling in a gap it was previously missing. Wearing devices from Oura and Garmin has made me wish every smartwatch and fitness tracker had these features, and it’s another sign that Apple has catching up to do in this regard.
Read more: Smart Rings Are Picking Up Where Fitness Trackers Left Off
Why recovery is important
My Oura Readiness score plummeted when I was sick.
While the Oura ring and other similar devices aren’t meant for issuing a medical diagnosis, its findings told me something was off. It provided further convincing that I was actually sick and not just worn out from a few late nights and long work days.
Garmin’s Body Battery is similarly helpful; when reviewing the Garmin Venu 3, I enjoyed getting notifications alerting me when long stretches of rest contributed to “recharging” my battery.
What makes these statistics interesting and useful is that they go beyond just reciting numbers and noticing trends. Instead, these scores actually influence my behavior by offering meaningful context. Metrics like heart rate variability, sleeping patterns and activity levels don’t always mean much on their own, but seeing how they fit together takes it to another level.
Of course, a Readiness score is just that — another number that can be easily ignored, just like notifications from your phone or watch. It’s also important to remember that Samsung hasn’t even launched My Vitality Score yet, so it’s impossible to know whether it’s accurate or useful.
But if it’s anything like these tools from Garmin or Oura, there’s a lot to look forward to. Plus, Samsung doesn’t charge a subscription fee for its health app like Oura and Google do, possibly giving it an important edge over those competitors.
