Samsung Health revamped its continuous heart rate diagram, and users are upset

Bars are in and lines are out – but it may be better

A change to the visualization of heart rate data for the Samsung Galaxy Watch4 smartwatch has left some users frustrated. But the new visuals in the Samsung Health app may provide more insight than the old line graph - now providing more information about users' high and low heart rates throughout the day.

The change was raised by a Redditor, posting in the Galaxy Watch subreddit that Samsung had removed continuous heart rate tracking from the Samsung Health app. In the post, he explains his own issues with the heart rate function of his Watch4, including it not correctly displaying his heart rate and sometimes just not showing that information at all.

He also points out that the continuous heart rate data in the Samsung Health app has appeared incomplete, with gaps in the graph highlighting the poor tracking (and making it difficult to decipher). We noticed a similar issue in our review of the Watch4, proving that it's not exactly an isolated problem.

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Now, perhaps owing to the awkward nature of the Samsung Health app's visualization of data, the continuous heart rate graph has actually been replaced in an update with a new bar graph. A Samsung customer service member confirmed the change in a chat with the Redditor:

Thanks for confirming Tomasz. Just to let you know, we do have an application update on our health app. The Continuous Heart Rate vanishes of Samsung health was a built-in feature of the latest updates of the app. In this case, I regret to inform you that since the update was already installed on your device, then we cannot change it back to a continuous graph.

While the new update appears to dial back on continuous heart rate tracking as a feature — and some users believe this is to gloss over tracking gaps and inconsistencies — the new approach may provide added insight. Now users can see the highs and lows of their heart rate throughout the day on a bar graph, rather than a singular continuous (or not) line which tracks a singular value. The update should be available now, and the new bar graph should appear in your Samsung Health app.

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