Samsung's Gear S3 was widely considered to be one of the best smartwatches around when it debuted in late 2016, and that's a point that's still often associated with it to this very day. Tizen 3.0 is now being rolled out to the Gear S3 as part of Samsung's "Value Pack Update", and there's a lot that's included with it.
Tizen 3.0 ships on the Gear Sport out of the box, so while the features here aren't entirely new, they are things we haven't yet seen on its older brother. One of the biggest improvements with the 3.0 update is an even heavier focus on fitness tracking. With Tizen 3.0, you can use the Gear S3 to continuously monitor your heartbeat with improved accuracy, add food eaten throughout the day to keep track of calories, and use Samsung's Health Fitness Program that allows you to control workout videos on your smart TV and even see your heart rate in real-time on the big screen.
If fitness tracking really isn't your thing, the update also allows you to now create contacts and events right on your watch, view and edit checklists, as well as edit how often you're notified of web and video reminders.
The UI as a whole retains the same look, but there are a few smaller updates that make interacting with it all the more enjoyable. Widgets have been reworked to showcase more information on the Gear S3's circular display, rotating the bezel quickly will allow you to see more options at once when changing your watch face, and you can go from a text message notification right to the reply field by just rotating your bezel as well.
Top this off with the ability to reorder apps based on how recently they've been used, swipe up or down from any screen to access the new Moment Bar, and a more modern look for the companion Samsung Gear app on your phone, and you're looking at a lot of new goodies.
Samsung's Value Pack Update with Tizen 3.0 is available to download now through the Samsung Gear app.
Samsung's Gear Sport is currently the best alternative to Android Wear
