S10+ / Galaxy Buds / Galaxy Watch Active: Ecosystem Review

Here's the Samsung trio I used for a year: Galaxy S10+, Galaxy Buds, Galaxy Watch Active. All of these were obtained at release date.

This review is my experience using the Galaxy Buds and Galaxy Watch, with a Galaxy S10+.

Phone Battery Impact

I used the watch from about 8am to 6pm everyday, and also during gym every 2nd day (so add another 1-2 hours plus buds usage), and I get like 5-6 hrs Screen-On-Time (SOT) with 18-20 hrs total device time. Without the watch, I would get maybe the same SOT with 23 hrs total device time. Both of these are really acceptable and so my conclusion is the watch and buds do not take away much battery for the S10+ at all. Mind you I leave WiFi, 4G, Bluetooth (BT), Location constantly on all day for seamless connectivity to routers, car BT, buds BT, watch BT, etc. The buds hardly do much to battery life from what I've noticed.

Watch & Buds Battery

The Galaxy Watch Active lasts 1.5-2 days, and the Galaxy Buds last quite a long time, maybe 6 hours + 5 hours from the case.

Watch Usefulness/Review

I use it for overall fitness tracking , fitness tracking at the gym, as a simple watch, Samsung Pay, for notifications, for Spotify control sometimes, stress levels and breathing exercises, calendar, etc. If you just run or walk, don't need to touch the screen, it'll track everything. If you're at the gym, you can choose each workout specifically from the S-Health app (e.g. Leg Extensions, Planks, Squats) or you can click generic workout and it'll track it as that. When you go to the S-Health app on the phone, all your fitness info will sync. Also you can load songs onto the watch itself and pair it with any BT headset (e.g. Buds). So then you don't need to carry your phone to the gym. Samsung Pay has worked awesome on this watch, you just have to know that the NFC is located on the top edge of the watch where the 2 little holes are. I got the silver Galaxy Watch Active and the silver trim looks really really premium and shiny which I love.

Watch Accuracy

Fitness accuracy is great. It even vibrates every 10 reps (configurable) for an exercise if you enter it through S-Health. The one drawback is heart-rate is not that accurate sometimes. I don't mind this as I just perform a quick HR check once every now and then. I have not tried sleep tracking as I don't like wearing a watch to sleep.

Buds Overall Review

Really snug into the ear and never falls out even if I am jumping around or upside down. Quite comfortable but after about 2 hours it may get a bit irritating (obviously). Sound is very good for true wireless to be honest! You just need to go to the Gear app and use Dynamic mode, and turn on Dolby Atmos permanently. Also if only one bud is in and the other is in the case, it will switch to Mono which is awesome. One weird thing is the charging case automatically tops up the buds to 100% as soon as you put it in. This is annoying but I'm used to it now. Also the touch controls are a bit limited - example, if you want to use it for volume control then you don't get voice assistant, or vice versa. But for play/pause/next, it is good. Perhaps software will fix this.

Buds Call Quality

In a quiet room, excellent. In a noisy outdoor environment, it is not too good, but workable. You'll sound a bit robotic perhaps, but many headphones do this anyway.

Summary

Really happy with the S10+ / Buds / Watch Active ecosystem. Everything is quite seamless, battery is good for me, features are awesome.