I picked it up a week ago (release day, the 10th), but just returned it. I never return things, and I hated returning this.
My experiences:
GREAT:
-Easily the most comfortable fitting device I've ever had on my wrist, and with no clip, it doesn't scrape desks and laptop palm wrests, or is even noticeable as a lump on the wrist (complete opposite of my experience with my wife's Microsoft Band 2).
-Screen is incredible, indoors, and not bad outside
-Swipe navigation is smooth and responsive
-The display wake gesture was pretty solid and responsive
-The charger is awesome. Pulls device into place via magnet perfectly and works the same regardless of direction, the display shows time and charge, right side up both ways. Mount is stable and low-centered to sit on desk firmly, without being oversized or heavy. Charges extremely fast
-GPS was dead on each day of my 42 mile daily bike commute, in comparison to my Wahoo ELEMNT cycling computer's GPS
MEH-ISH:
-The notifications were good, but limited details which required I go to the phone often to know what it was about. I understand it's a band and not a full blown smartwatch, so not really complaining
-There wasn't much you could do with it as far as apps, but it's new and I'm sure that will change soon.
-The auto-sleep detection didn't work well for me. If I watched TV before bed, it would count it as sleep, and if I got up in the middle of the night to pee and let the dogs out, it would end the sleep session, sometimes ignoring me going back to bed, other times counting them as separate sleeps. If I went into S Health to manually edit it, it was extremely buggy, wouldn't save, would lose the data, ect. I gave up trying. Since there was no manual sleep start/stop like you can with exercise, you have to go with the auto-detect.
BATTERY:
I ran mostly default settings as far as alerts/notifications 24/7 heart rate, ect. My 42 mile daily commute (~2 hrs) I would manually start the cycling mode with GPS and heart rate (ebike,
video of my commute) lol and from that, after 24 hours, it would be down to around half battery. Each morning I would have a cup of coffee at my desk and charge it (<20 minutes). I'm the kind of person that needs habits or I forget. So, even if the device lasted 5 days, I would prefer to stick it on the charger at the same time every day to top it off as a routine. Don't get me wrong, I'd love it if it lasted a week, or a month+, if I need to travel, but as long as it easily lasts a day, I can be good with that, considering the fast charging. The Microsoft band 2 takes 1hr+ from my experience.
NOPE:
-The stopper, for me, was the locked down data for exercise. Heart rate data couldn't be viewed in the 1 second format anywhere but in a very basic graph on the S Health app and on the device. It doesn't even carry to Google Fit. Even though there's Strava sharing, export options, ect, it ONLY allows GPS and time stamp data out. Even in developer mode of the phone and app, I could only see the 24 hour heart rate samples, and random samples during the activity, nothing even close to the 1 second data, though better than the Microsoft Band's 1 minute heart rate data. Since my S7 doesn't have root, I gave up trying to get at the data.
DISCOVERY:
-Having bought it from Best Buy, I exchanged it for the Vivoactive hr. HOWEVER, after exchanging it, I noticed a Samsung rep in the store so I went to him to say how much I loved the Gear Fit 2, but I HAD to have access to the data, so returned it. He said something like: "Very soon there's a Tizen update coming that will open that data up via an API for the major fitness platforms, including Strava, who is already set up to receive that data once we update".
-Well, crap, wish I had known that before. The Vivoactive hr display is HORRIBLE, I have the brightness cranked and a custom, bold, white watch face to help me try and see it in dim areas. In the sun it's fine, because it reflects the light to see the numbers, but in the dark it's extremely hard for me to see. Also, the notifications are more like annoyifications because they keep re-notifying even after being dismissed, randomly.
By me it is between 2-3 days.
