Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 and 4 Classic are the new hot gadgets on the market, and if you are reading this post, you might very well own one too.
So here are you, looking for the ‘Galaxy Watch 4 tips and tricks’ to unleash the full potential of the fancy gadget on your wrist.
These tips and tricks include anything from boosting the battery life to customizing buttons.
So, without any further ado, let us get right into it!
Table of Contents
What does Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 do?
- Notifications on the wrist and read messages
- Music Storage and Streaming
- Fitness tracking (calories, exercise minutes, elevation)
- Workout and Sports Tracking
- Heart rate and Sleep monitoring
- Detect signs of Atrial Fibrillation (AFib)
- ECG readings, blood oxygen tracking
- Measure Body Composition
- GPS tracking of workouts
- Make calls and receive messages (LTE versions with data plan)
- Turn-by-turn navigation
- Bixby commands – alarms, timers, reminders
- Make Contactless Payments Via Samsung Pay, Google Pay
- Physical and Touch bezel for navigation
- Customize Watch Faces
- Tell the time
Want More Real Estate: Change the Font Size
You might want to read notifications, emails, and text messages without swiping excessively on the Galaxy Watch 4.
The watch’s small screen offers limited real estate and there is little you can do with it.
However, you can deal with it another way. Galaxy Watch 4 allows you to tweak the font size and if you set it to the smallest size, your problem is solved.
Swipe up to access the quick menu> Go to settings> Display > font size> tap on small.
Not a Fan of Default Settings? Customize Home and Back Key
By default, you can perform the following functions using the two buttons.
- Pressing the top button will bring you home
- By Double clicking the top button you can quickly switch to a previously used app.
- Long press the top/home button to power up ‘Bixby’
- The bottom button brings up a view of previously used app
- Long Press the button/back button to access ‘Samsung Pay’
However, if you are not a big fan of these shortcuts, you can revamp them as you want.
Settings>Advanced Features> Customize Keys
Download Existing Phone Apps On Your Galaxy Watch:
One of the big updates for the Galaxy Watch 4 is the introduction of Wear OS. Samsung meshed its own One UI at the top so it feels more like Tizen. Samsung took a leaf out of Apple’s book and introduced apps synchronization.
If there is a wearable version of your smartphone app on the Google Play store, the Galaxy Watch 4 would allow you to install it. You don’t have to keep tabs as it would automatically tell you which app is available for installation. To find out this
Tap on Google Play Store> ‘Apps On Your Phone (There is now an app for Youtube that let you download music on the watch
Make Contactless Payments Via Samsung Pay & Google Pay
The NFC technology is not new to Samsung Wearables. You can make contactless payments on both Galaxy Watch 3 and Active 2. However, Galaxy Watch 4 offers you two modes to do so.
As mentioned earlier, you can access Samsung Pay by a long press of the back/bottom button and follow on-screen instructions to sync your details.
Google Pay doesn’t come preinstalled on the watch. You will have to navigate to
Google Play Store> Essentials for Wear OS> Install Google Pay > Follow the on-screen instructions to sync your account
Don’t Miss Out On Important Notifications
By default, you can get notifications of only a few applications on your watch. To get access to notifications of all the desired apps, you will have to install the Galaxy Wearable (Samsung Gear) application on your phone.
The app is usually automatically installed when you connect your Galaxy Watch to your Android phone for the first time. Anyways, once inside the application, go to
Watch settings>>Notification>>Tap ‘More’> Tap ‘Drop Down Menu’ (at the top)>>Select ‘All’>>Now you can pick only specific apps to customize notifications on the watch.
The notification alert on the Galaxy Watch 4, like many other smartwatches these days, is through vibrations. By default, these vibrations are very weak and there is a good chance you can miss important notifications by the watch’s fault. Luckily, on GW4 you can set the intensity and duration of the vibrations.
Settings >> Sounds and Vibrations>>Vibrations>>Set ‘Vibration intensity’ and ‘Vibration Duration’
Keep in mind, these settings would take a heavy toll on the watch’s battery life.
Set Custom Responses and QWERTY Keyboard For Fast Messaging
There are a number of ways you can exercise to reply to messages on Galaxy Watch 4. You can bank on voice to text features, send voice messages, use a T9 style keyboard or draw letters on the screen to type messages.
Other than that, you can send custom replies to messages and install the QWERTY keyboard on the watch.
To program custom messages, open the smartphone app (Galaxy Wearable), and go to watch settings. Open general, and tap on ‘Quick Responses. Here you can delete and add new responses (30 character limit).
Surprisingly, Samsung’s Ai would bring up only those responses on the top that are relevant to the incoming messages. (enable ‘message suggestion’ to use this feature)
To install the QWERTY keyboard, first, install the G Board by Google on the watch.
Open settings>>General>>Input>>Keyboard List and Default>>Default Keyboard>>Tap on G Board.
The keyboard supports swipes so messaging would be a lot easier. We recommend you set the font size to medium to use the keyboard more efficiently.
Customize The Quick Setting Panel, Tiles, Applications
There are many handy quick access buttons if you swipe down on the Galaxy Watch 4 home screen. However, if for some reason you find a few or all of them unnecessary and want to add new ‘quick access icons’ on the Panel, just follow these steps.
Swipe down>>Long press any icon>>Edit Menu>>delete or add new quick access icons on the panel.
To customize the tiles you will have to follow the same procedure but this time on the home screen.
Long press a tile and it will bring you to the edit menu. Here you can rearrange tiles, add new ones or remove the unnecessary tiles. Also, some tiles allow you to edit the items in it (mostly that relate to sports and fitness).
To rearrange your apps, you just have to press any application icon for a while and it will start buzzing. You can now rearrange its position and delete it.
Phone Misplaced? No Problem?
Let’s face it, we all misplace our phones sometimes. It can be anywhere: left in a car, upstairs in the bathroom, laundry room under a pile of freshly folded clothes? The wrong pocket of a purse? Into the couch cushions or under the bed lairs of your home?
Galaxy Watch 4 would solve all your problems (but this isn’t a new feature in the smartwatches). All you have to do is to look for the ‘Find Phone’ icon on the quick access panel, and it will trigger a ringtone on the smartphone.
Screen Protector and Touch Sensitivity Issues
The Galaxy Watch 4 Classic has a raised bezel that generally takes the brunt of collisions with desktops, doorways, and all the other daily obstacles.
The exposed watch face of Galaxy Watch 4 might look attractive and it does offer slightly more screen real estate, but it is going to amass more scratches over its lifespan. So you might be hard-pushed to buy a screen protector for the watch.
However, touch sensitivity or the lack of it is often a trade-off for added protection. Thankfully, On Galaxy Watch 4 you won’t have to face the same problem as you can just tweak the sensitivity to counter the unresponsiveness due to the screen protector.
Settings>> Display >> Toggle the Touch Sensitivity Icon
Use GW4 To Take Photos/Control Casting Media:
This one is a no-brainer.
This feature is new or exclusive to Samsung Galaxy Watch, but the camera control feature of the Galaxy Watch 4 is really top-of-the-line. The Watch needs to be synced to the smartphone.
As you open the app on the smartwatch, it will bring up the camera on the smartphone. You can preview the captured shot and screen of your smartphone, and can even add a timer.
Also, if you are casting a youtube Video on TV screen or music on your soundbar, you can now control it right from your wrist.
Squeeze Out Extra Hours Of Battery:
You can squeeze out a couple of extra hours on a single charge by turning the color screen into grayscale mode. It essentially takes the hue and saturation out of the display thus conserving the battery life.
Just follow these instructions in the given order
Settings>>accessibility>>Advanced Settings>>Turn On ‘Two Finger Triple Tap’>>Select Grayscale
Now tap three times on the screen using two fingers, and the watch display will flip to grayscale.
Customize Watch Faces:
Samsung’s Watch Face customization tool is the gold standard in the industry, so it is no surprise that it made the jump to the new operating system.
You can customize the watch face using the watch itself and the phone. The latter method is quite convenient and allows you a ton of different customization options.
You can simply long-press the watch face to customize it. (Just follow the on-screen prompts, they are quite intuitive)
Or, you can open the App on your smartphone, and go to watch faces. There you can customize the Faces.
Measure ECG (or EKG) And Blood Pressure:
Samsung added ECG and Blood Pressure monitoring back in Galaxy Watch Active 2 and later these advanced health features made their way to Galaxy Watch 3 and the latest Galaxy Watch 4 and 4 Classic.
However, in the latest watches, these features are locked to Samsung Phones.
To take the real-time ECG reading, just find the ECG tile and tap on the record. The watch will sync data with the ‘Health Monitoring app on your Samsung Phone.
Before taking the reading, make sure that the watch is snug on your wrist. Hold the finger on the Home/top button for 30 seconds for the watch to register an accurate reading.
Blood Pressure monitoring is a little tricky. Follow the instructions as demonstrated in the video below.
Get Turn by Turn Directions on the Google Map:
Google Maps has been added to the Galaxy Watch 4, and just like you add ‘Google Pay’, you can install the Google Maps for turn by turn direction. You don’t have to pair your phone with the watch to get full access to ‘Google Maps’.
Bright Future Ahead:
Just wait for a few more months, you would get revamped apps like Starve, Adidas Running, Nike Run Club, and MyfitnessPal. Just like the Apple Watch, there will be a new Spotify app for Wear OS that will include playlist syncing support.
A new Google Assistant would also make it to the Wear OS.
As already mentioned, you can now install all apps from the Phone. Though there is an option on the watch, downloading from the phone is more convenient. Galaxy Watch will already notify you what wearable version of the Smartphone app is available, so you can easily install the apps with a single tap.
Note: We will update more tips and tricks in a while.