best of galaxy store awards celebrating the year’s top performing apps. the 2022 best of galaxy store awards are here! watch the awards on youtube, as we celebrate the acheivements of these great developers, designers, and content creators. video thumbanil 2022 award winners view previous award winners these are the categories that were honored with the 2022 best of galaxy store awards. we thank these partners for their hard work and innovations. best theme collection pengtai interactive advertising co. best wallpaper collection bergen best icon pack collection cogul planet best music app sirius xm streaming by sirius xm radio, inc. best entertainment app vudu by fandango media best bixby capsule scorestream best bixby developer farefirst by amahop technologies best podcast partner acast best podcast solar by curtco media best strategy game pokémon go by niantic, inc. best tower defense game kingdom guard by tap4fun best mmo game evony: the king’s return by top games inc. game of the year catalyst black by super evil megacorp success stories go to blog learn how previous award winners have been successful

the 2020 best of galaxy store awards are just around the corner. for the first two years, these awards were announced during the annual samsung developer conference. however, the awards show has moved online for 2020 which means more people can tune in to see who this year's winners are. the best of galaxy store awards recognize the top games, apps, themes, watch faces, and new this year, bixby capsules. last month, in the season one finale of the samsung developers podcast we talked about the history of the awards, past highlights of previous awards, exciting new changes to galaxy store, and our upcoming 2020 best of galaxy store awards show. be sure to tune in and listen. curious what makes our past winners stand out? we have interviewed a number of past winners on our blog. read what inspires them and what their tips are for finding success on galaxy store. get a sneak peak of this year's awards and save the date for wednesday, decemeber 9 at 5pm pst. the awards show will premiere on our youtube channel so be sure to subscribe and hit the notification bell.

phaser is an excellent option for game developers that want to reach different platforms using their front-end skills. it is the most popular javascript-based gaming framework and, because it is open-source, it has additional plugins, samples, and snippets shared by the developer community. this is the first in a series of blog posts that will include short and helpful videos that will guide you through creating your first video game with phaser. in this video we will cover of what is phaser, where to download it and the minimum requirements to start developing your games with it. in upcoming videos we will cover basic concepts, so you can build games from zero and adapt them to your own style and needs. i will focus on games for mobile devices that will be able to publish in the samsung galaxy store, but you can easily adapt these topics to any web or desktop games. useful links phaser’s official page download phaser photonstorm’s github repository documentation phaser’s discord community over 1500 examples follow up this site has many resources for developers looking to build for and integrate with samsung devices and services. stay in touch with the latest news by creating a free account or by subscribing to our monthly newsletter. visit the marketing resources page for information on promoting and distributing your apps. finally, our developer forum is an excellent way to stay up-to-date on all things related to the galaxy ecosystem.

looking to show off your design chops? you can now submit your portfolio to samsung and apply to become a galaxy watch face or galaxy themes seller. the submission window is open october 14 - october 27. galaxy watch check out our latest how-to blog and read up on the new process for watch face design reviews. then head over to the submission page and complete your application. galaxy themes watch our video for an overview of the process and what you need to prepare. then download the themes submission starter kit and let the creative juices flow. once you've assembled everything, complete your application here. while you're working on your portolfio, listen to tony show diego how to use galaxy themes studio. it will livestream on thursday, october 15 at 10am pt and will be available on youtube for replay. submit now the application process is very selective, and only the best of the best are selected. think you have what it takes? we can't wait to find out.

intro foldable technology for mobile is a ground-breaking experience not only for users, but also for developers. the presence of many form factors, like immersive display, app continuity, flex mode, and ux optimization, challenge developers to think outside of the box to adapt to this technology. there are already a large number of blogs talking about general application considerations, but what about gaming on a foldable device? in this blog, we look at the challenges and new opportunities foldable devices present for mobile game development. this blog focuses on unity and unreal engine as they are the most common game engines for mobile development. however, a lot of the information applies to other engines as well. app continuity and multi-window mode firstly, let's establish that the large internal display is called the main display whilst the smaller external display is called the cover display. app continuity and multi-window mode are two key features of foldable smartphones. with app continuity, you can seamlessly transition between the cover display to the main display without needing to reopen the app. with multi-window, you can run multiple apps at once and multitask like never before. app continuity moving an app between the two displays affects the size, density, and aspect ratio of the display it can use. app continuity is enabled and disabled from the android manifest of the app: the <activity> element has a new attribute called resizeableactivity. if not set, this attribute defaults to true, thus enabling app continuity and assuming the app fully supports both app continuity and multi-window mode. if set to true then the application automatically attempts to resize when moving between displays, as shown in the video below. if set to false then the system still allows you to transition from the cover display to the main display but does not attempt to resize the application. instead, a new button appears, allowing the user to restart the application at a time of their choosing, as shown below. when the app transitions between the two displays, the activity is destroyed and recreated. as such, the app data needs to be stored and then used to restore the previous state. from testing, both unity and unreal engine appear to handle this process already. however, if you are developing on a custom engine, it is worth confirming that your engine/app can handle this. continue on cover screen by default, foldable devices simply lock the device when closing the main display. however, it is possible for users to disable this functionality for certain apps. in the device's display settings, there is an option called "continue on cover screen" that has to be enabled by the user. entering this menu displays a list of all applications on the device and enables users to set specific applications to not lock the device when closing the main display. if an application has resizeableactivity set to false then the option to enable this functionality is greyed out and is not available. if your application supports resizing and app continuity then you should make sure to test that this works as users may wish to enable this functionality on their device. multi-window mode multi-window mode can allow up to three apps to run at the same time in a split-screen arrangement (see left image) or for two apps to run in pop-up mode which keeps one app full-screen but creates another app in a smaller pop-up window (see right image). just like app continuity, this is enabled using the attribute resizeableactivity in the android manifest. if resizeableactivity is not set then it defaults to true. so again, it is recommended that you set this yourself to ensure that your app works as intended. app continuity without multi-window mode if you would like your app to support app continuity but don't want it to be used by the multi-window mode, then this is possible. first, you should set the resizableactivity attribute to false to disable both app continuity and multi-window mode. next use the following <meta-data> element in your <activity> element: <meta-data android:name="android.supports_size_changes" android:value="true" /> this re-enables the app continuity feature without enabling multi-window mode. game engine features to use if using existing game engines then there are several existing features that are useful if developing for foldable devices. this section provides a high-level look at these features. for more in-depth information, i recommend visiting the engine's documentation. unity unity is a very good engine for developing on foldable devices, requiring little to no setup to enable features for foldable devices. the engine automatically handles resizing of the application without any modifications required. the resizeableactivity attribute is controlled by an option in the player settings: resizable window. when enabled, resizeableactivity appears to be set to true; when disabled, resizeableactivity appears to be set to false. note this option is not available in older versions of unity. if this option is not present then you have to set the resizeableactivity manually. the engine also provides a very robust ui scaling system that helps to reduce the amount of work required to create a ui that works across both the cover display and main display. the canvas scaler and anchor system work very well with foldable devices and work to resize and position elements consistently across the two displays, thus preventing developers from having to create two ui designs (one for cover display and one for main display). unreal engine 4 unreal engine 4 is another good engine for developing on foldable devices, although it requires a little more work to get it set up for foldable devices. first of all, unreal engine 4 by default disables the resize event on android devices, however, it is possible to re-enable it in device profiles using the console variable: r.enablenativeresizeevent = 1 unreal engine 4 by default also has a max aspect ratio of 2.1. this is, however, too small for the cover display of some foldable devices which can result in black bars on either side of the image. fortunately, unreal engine makes this value easily changeable in the project settings: platform -> android -> max aspect ratio from my testing, 2.8 is a good value. however, i recommend users experiment to find the best value. unreal engine's umg (unreal motion graphics ui designer) has a comprehensive set of tools for creating responsive ui designs. this system automatically scales ui elements to fit the screen size, and the anchor system is also very useful for ensuring the ui elements are positioned correctly between the two displays. samsung remote test lab no matter what engine you use, the best way to ensure your app works well on a foldable device is to test it on a foldable device. samsung remote test lab has a range of foldable devices available for developers to test their applications on if getting hold of a physical device is too difficult or expensive. all you need to do is create a samsung account and you can start using these devices for testing. android jetpack windowmanager despite being very good engines for foldable game development, neither unity nor unreal currently provide information about the current state of the foldable device (that is, is it open/closed/halfway?, where is the fold positioned?, what is the fold's orientation? and so forth). however, android has recently created a new library as a part of their android jetpack libraries that enables developers to access this information and make use of it in their apps. android jetpack in their own words is "a suite of libraries to help developers follow best practices, reduce boilerplate code, and write code that works consistently across android versions and devices so that developers can focus on the code they care about." windowmanager is a new library from the android jetpack suite, intended to help application developers support new device form factors and multi-window environments. the library had its 1.0.0 release in january 2022, and targeted foldable devices but—according to the documentation—future versions will extend to more display types and window features. more technical resources this blogpost has an accompanying technical blogpost and code lab tutorial, demonstrating how to use the android jetpack windowmanager with both unity and unreal to take advantage of the flex mode feature of samsung's foldable devices. i recommend starting with the jetpack windowmanager blogpost to learn how to set up the windowmanager in java: https://developer.samsung.com/galaxy-gamedev/blog/en-us/2022/07/20/how-to-use-jetpack-window-manager-in-android-game-dev then, follow it up with the code labs to learn how to make use of the windowmanager to implement a simple flex mode setup in either unreal or unity: https://developer.samsung.com/codelab/gamedev/flex-mode-unreal.html https://developer.samsung.com/codelab/gamedev/flex-mode-unity.html also, visit our game developer community to join the discussion around mobile gaming and foldable devices. click here to find out more about other design considerations when designing apps for foldable devices and large screens. final thoughts foldable devices provide a richer experience than regular phones. hopefully, this blogpost and accompanying tutorial have provided you with the necessary information to begin taking advantage of these new form factors and start providing users a richer foldable experience. additional resources on the samsung developers site the samsung developers site has many resources for developers looking to build for and integrate with samsung devices and services. stay in touch with the latest news by creating a free account and subscribing to our monthly newsletter. visit the galaxy store games page for information on bringing your game to galaxy store and visit the marketing resources page for information on promoting and distributing your android apps. finally, our developer forum is an excellent way to stay up-to-date on all things related to the galaxy ecosystem.

the samsung developers team works with many companies in the mobile and gaming ecosystems. we're excited to support our partner, arm, as they bring timely and relevant content to developers looking to build games and high-performance experiences. this vulkan extensions series will help developers get the most out of the new and game-changing vulkan extensions on samsung mobile devices. android r is enabling a host of useful vulkan extensions for mobile, with three being key 'game changers'. these are set to improve the state of graphics apis for modern applications, enabling new use cases and changing how developers can design graphics renderers going forward. you can expect to see these features across a variety of android smartphones, such as the new samsung galaxy s21, and existing samsung galaxy s models like the samsung galaxy s20. the first blog explored the first game changer extension for vulkan – ‘descriptor indexing'. this blog explores the second game changer extension – ‘buffer device address.’ vk_khr_buffer_device_address vk_khr_buffer_device_address is a monumental extension that adds a unique feature to vulkan that none of the competing graphics apis support. pointer support is something that has always been limited in graphics apis, for good reason. pointers complicate a lot of things, especially for shader compilers. it is also near impossible to deal with plain pointers in legacy graphics apis, which rely on implicit synchronization. there are two key aspects to buffer_device_address (bda). first, it is possible to query a gpu virtual address from a vkbuffer. this is a plain uint64_t. this address can be written anywhere you like, in uniform buffers, push constants, or storage buffers, to name a few. the key aspect which makes this extension unique is that a spir-v shader can load an address from a buffer and treat it as a pointer to storage buffer memory immediately. pointer casting, pointer arithmetic and all sorts of clever trickery can be done inside the shader. there are many use cases for this feature. some are performance-related, and some are new use cases that have not been possible before. getting the gpu virtual address (va) there are some hoops to jump through here. first, when allocating vkdevicememory, we must flag that the memory supports bda: vkmemoryallocateinfo info = {…}; vkmemoryallocateflagsinfo flags = {…}; flags.flags = vk_memory_allocate_device_address_bit_khr; vkallocatememory(device, &info, null, &memory); similarly, when creating a vkbuffer, we add the vk_buffer_usage_shader_device_address_bit_khr usage flag. once we have created a buffer, we can query the va: vkbufferdeviceaddressinfokhr info = {…}; info.buffer = buffer; vkdevicesize va = vkgetbufferdeviceaddresskhr(device, &info); from here, this 64-bit value can be placed in a buffer. you can of course offset this va. alignment is never an issue as shaders specify explicit alignment later. a note on debugging when using bda, there are some extra features that drivers must support. since a pointer does not necessarily exist when replaying an application capture in a debug tool, the driver must be able to guarantee that virtual addresses returned by the driver remain stable across runs. to that end, debug tools supply the expected va and the driver allocates that va range. applications do not care that much about this, but it is important to note that even if you can use bda, you might not be able to debug with it. typedef struct vkphysicaldevicebufferdeviceaddressfeatures { vkstructuretype stype; void* pnext; vkbool32 bufferdeviceaddress; vkbool32 bufferdeviceaddresscapturereplay; vkbool32 bufferdeviceaddressmultidevice; } vkphysicaldevicebufferdeviceaddressfeatures; if bufferdeviceaddresscapturereplay is supported, tools like renderdoc can support bda. using a pointer in a shader in vulkan glsl, there is the gl_ext_buffer_reference extension which allows us to declare a pointer type. a pointer like this can be placed in a buffer, or we can convert to and from integers: #version 450 #extension gl_ext_buffer_reference : require #extension gl_ext_buffer_reference_uvec2 : require layout(local_size_x = 64) in; // these define pointer types. layout(buffer_reference, std430, buffer_reference_align = 16) readonly buffer readvec4 { vec4 values[]; }; layout(buffer_reference, std430, buffer_reference_align = 16) writeonly buffer writevec4 { vec4 values[]; }; layout(buffer_reference, std430, buffer_reference_align = 4) readonly buffer unalignedvec4 { vec4 value; }; layout(push_constant, std430) uniform registers { readvec4 src; writevec4 dst; } registers; placing raw pointers in push constants avoids all indirection for getting to a buffer. if the driver allows it, the pointers can be placed directly in gpu registers before the shader begins executing. not all devices support 64-bit integers, but it is possible to cast uvec2 <-> pointer. doing address computation like this is fine. uvec2 uadd_64_32(uvec2 addr, uint offset) { uint carry; addr.x = uaddcarry(addr.x, offset, carry); addr.y += carry; return addr; } void main() { uint index = gl_globalinvocationid.x; registers.dst.values[index] = registers.src.values[index]; uvec2 addr = uvec2(registers.src); addr = uadd_64_32(addr, 20 * index); cast a uvec2 to address and load a vec4 from it. this address is aligned to 4 bytes. registers.dst.values[index + 1024] = unalignedvec4(addr).value; } pointer or offsets? using raw pointers is not always the best idea. a natural use case you could consider for pointers is that you have tree structures or list structures in gpu memory. with pointers, you can jump around as much as you want, and even write new pointers to buffers. however, a pointer is 64-bit and a typical performance consideration is to use 32-bit offsets (or even 16-bit offsets) if possible. using offsets is the way to go if you can guarantee that all buffers live inside a single vkbuffer. on the other hand, the pointer approach can access any vkbuffer at any time without having to use descriptors. therein lies the key strength of bda. extreme hackery: physical pointer as specialization constants this is a life saver in certain situations where you are desperate to debug something without any available descriptor set. a black magic hack is to place a bda inside a specialization constant. this allows for accessing a pointer without using any descriptors. do note that this breaks all forms of pipeline caching and is only suitable for debug code. do not ship this kind of code. perform this dark sorcery at your own risk: #version 450 #extension gl_ext_buffer_reference : require #extension gl_ext_buffer_reference_uvec2 : require layout(local_size_x = 64) in; layout(constant_id = 0) const uint debug_addr_lo = 0; layout(constant_id = 1) const uint debug_addr_hi = 0; layout(buffer_reference, std430, buffer_reference_align = 4) buffer debugcounter { uint value; }; void main() { debugcounter counter = debugcounter(uvec2(debug_addr_lo, debug_addr_hi)); atomicadd(counter.value, 1u); } emitting spir-v with buffer_device_address in spir-v, there are some things to note. bda is an especially useful feature for layering other apis due to its extreme flexibility in how we access memory. therefore, generating bda code yourself is a reasonable use case to assume as well. enables bda in shaders. _opcapability physicalstoragebufferaddresses opextension "spv_khr_physical_storage_buffer"_ the memory model is physicalstoragebuffer64 and not logical anymore. _opmemorymodel physicalstoragebuffer64 glsl450_ the buffer reference types are declared basically just like ssbos. _opdecorate %_runtimearr_v4float arraystride 16 opmemberdecorate %readvec4 0 nonwritable opmemberdecorate %readvec4 0 offset 0 opdecorate %readvec4 block opdecorate %_runtimearr_v4float_0 arraystride 16 opmemberdecorate %writevec4 0 nonreadable opmemberdecorate %writevec4 0 offset 0 opdecorate %writevec4 block opmemberdecorate %unalignedvec4 0 nonwritable opmemberdecorate %unalignedvec4 0 offset 0 opdecorate %unalignedvec4 block_ declare a pointer to the blocks. physicalstoragebuffer is the storage class to use. optypeforwardpointer %_ptr_physicalstoragebuffer_writevec4 physicalstoragebuffer %_ptr_physicalstoragebuffer_readvec4 = optypepointer physicalstoragebuffer %readvec4 %_ptr_physicalstoragebuffer_writevec4 = optypepointer physicalstoragebuffer %writevec4 %_ptr_physicalstoragebuffer_unalignedvec4 = optypepointer physicalstoragebuffer %unalignedvec4 load a physical pointer from pushconstant. _%55 = opaccesschain %_ptr_pushconstant__ptr_physicalstoragebuffer_writevec4 %registers %int_1 %56 = opload %_ptr_physicalstoragebuffer_writevec4 %55_ access chain into it. _%66 = opaccesschain %_ptr_physicalstoragebuffer_v4float %56 %int_0 %40_ aligned must be specified when dereferencing physical pointers. pointers can have any arbitrary address and must be explicitly aligned, so the compiler knows what to do. opstore %66 %65 aligned 16 for pointers, spir-v can bitcast between integers and pointers seamlessly, for example: %61 = opload %_ptr_physicalstoragebuffer_readvec4 %60 %70 = opbitcast %v2uint %61 // do math on %70 %86 = opbitcast %_ptr_physicalstoragebuffer_unalignedvec4 %some_address conclusion we have already explored two key vulkan extension game changers through this blog and the previous one. the third and final part of this game changer blog series will explore ‘timeline semaphores’ and how developers can use this new extension to improve the development experience and enhance their games. follow up thanks to hans-kristian arntzen and the team at arm for bringing this great content to the samsung developers community. we hope you find this information about vulkan extensions useful for developing your upcoming mobile games. the samsung developers site has many resources for developers looking to build for and integrate with samsung devices and services. stay in touch with the latest news by creating a free account or by subscribing to our monthly newsletter. visit the marketing resources page for information on promoting and distributing your apps and games. finally, our developer forum is an excellent way to stay up-to-date on all things related to the galaxy ecosystem.

the body composition measurement is one of the powerful features of samsung galaxy watch. it is an important metric of your overall health. the body composition measurement data is displayed in the samsung health application on the galaxy watch and a compatible smartphone. in this article, we show you how to read the galaxy watch’s body composition data using the android health connect api in a sample application named "bia viewer". you can download the code for this sample application from the link at the bottom of this blog. bia is an abbreviation for bioelectrical impedance analysis, and the bia data measures body composition data. note : the body composition measurement feature is available on galaxy watch4 series and later models. installing health connect api the android health connect api provides interfaces for reading and writing your health and fitness data. the samsung health application exchanges data with the health connect api. to synchronize the data between the samsung health application and the health connect api, you must install the health connect application from google play. for more information, see accessing samsung health data through health connect. note : synchronization of data between the samsung health application and the health connect api is supported on samsung health v6.22.5 and later. measuring body composition with galaxy watch as the first step in developing your ultimate health application, you must collect the body composition data using the samsung health application in galaxy watch. steps to measure bia with galaxy watch: start the samsung health application. ensure that the galaxy watch is worn tightly on your wrist. raise your arms so your armpits are open. place your middle finger on the 2 o’clock key and ring finger on the 4 o’clock key on the watch. touch your watch only. don’t let your hand on the watch’s keys touch your arm or other hand on the watch. maintain the finger positions on the galaxy watch dial until the measurement is completed. example of a result obtained by measuring body composition with the samsung health application: after the bia measurement is completed on the galaxy watch, the data can be synchronized with the samsung health application. synchronizing data with the health connect application once you have data in the samsung health application, it is synchronized with the health connect application. synchronized body composition data can be found directly in the health connect application. basal metabolic rate body fat height weight bia viewer application overview bia viewer is an application that reads the body composition data collected by the samsung health application with the health connect apis. by default, this application loads the data during startup. however, you can manually reload the data using the “refresh” button. the bia viewer application reads the body composition data such as weight, height, body fat, basal metabolic rate. the user's height is not displayed and is only used to calculate bmi. the step-by-step construction of the most important elements of the application are described in the next sections. note : fat mass is calculated using the formula: [fat mass] = [body fat] * [weight] / 100 bmi is calculated using the formula: [bmi] = [weight] / ([height]* [height]) adding health connect api to your project before you start writing your code, you need to import and add the health connect api library to the file application/build.gradle in the dependencies section. implementation 'androidx.health.connect:connect-client:1.0.0-alpha07' now you are ready to use the health connect api. checking health connect availability on your device at the beginning of your application, it's a good idea to ensure that the device running your application actually supports the health connect api library. the library is available only when the health connect application is installed on the device. in our sample application, we set the availability flag, which can take any of the following three values: installed not_installed not_supported availability.value = when { healthconnectclient.isavailable(context) -> healthconnectavailability.installed issupported() -> healthconnectavailability.not_installed else -> healthconnectavailability.not_supported } in the next step, we can check the value of this flag and read the data or display an appropriate message to the user. when (availability) { healthconnectavailability.not_supported -> { val notsupportedtext = getstring( r.string.not_supported_description, min_supported_sdk ) toast.maketext(this, notsupportedtext, toast.length_long).show() } healthconnectavailability.not_installed -> { toast.maketext(this, r.string.not_installed_description, toast.length_long).show() } else -> { … } } get healthconnectclient before going to the next step, you need to get healthconnectclient. healthconnectclient is an entry point to the health connect api. healthconnectclient automatically manages its connection to the underlying storage layer and handles all ipc and serialization of the outgoing requests and the incoming responses. private val healthconnectclient by lazy { healthconnectclient.getorcreate(context) } ask for permissions in the first step, you need to modify the androidmanifest.xml file. add <intent-filter> in the <activity> section: <intent-filter> <action android:name="androidx.health.action_show_permissions_rationale" /> </intent-filter> add <meta-data> in the <activity> section: <meta-data android:name="health_permissions" android:resource="@array/health_permissions"/> add the <queries> element: <queries> <package android:name="com.google.android.apps.healthdata" /> </queries> declare the permissions your application will use. create an array resource in res/values/health_permissions.xml (we used them in androidmanifest.xml file). note that you need to add a line for every permission that your application will use: <resources> <array name="health_permissions"> <item>androidx.health.permission.weight.read</item> <item>androidx.health.permission.height.read</item> <item>androidx.health.permission.bodyfat.read</item> <item>androidx.health.permission.basalmetabolicrate.read</item> </array> </resources> to start the request permissions from your application, first build a set of permissions for the required data types. ensure that the permissions in the set are the same as in the res/values/health_permissions.xml file. val permissions = setof( healthpermission.createreadpermission(weightrecord::class), healthpermission.createreadpermission(heightrecord::class), healthpermission.createreadpermission(bodyfatrecord::class), healthpermission.createreadpermission(basalmetabolicraterecord::class), ) it is a good practice to ask for the required permissions whenever the application tries to use this data type. first, you should check whether the user has consented to use the particular functionality. suspend fun hasallpermissions(): boolean { return permissions == healthconnectclient.permissioncontroller.getgrantedpermissions( permissions ) } if not, you should ask for it before using the api. private fun checkpermissionsandrun() { lifecyclescope.launch { if (healthconnectmanager.hasallpermissions()) { readalldata() } else { requestpermissions.launch(healthconnectmanager.permissions) } } } to ask about permissions, you need to create a request permissions object. private fun createrequestpermissionsobject() { requestpermissions = registerforactivityresult(healthconnectmanager.requestpermissionactivitycontract) { granted -> lifecyclescope.launch { if (granted.isnotempty() && healthconnectmanager.hasallpermissions()) { // permissions successfully granted log.i(tag, "permissions successfully granted") readalldata() } else { // lack of required permissions runonuithread { toast.maketext(this@mainactivity, r.string.permission_denied, toast.length_long) .show() } } } } } sample permission request window: creating a query to read body composition data to read data, build the readrecordsrequest object and in the parameters, specify the time range and the data type. then, read the data by passing the readrecordsrequest object as a parameter. after the request is finished, the result contains the list of returned data that you requested. then you go through the list and read individual records. in our example, we will read only the last value. readrecordsrequest example code for weightrecord data type: suspend fun readweight(start: instant, end: instant): double { val request = readrecordsrequest( recordtype = weightrecord::class, timerangefilter = timerangefilter.between(start, end) ) val response = healthconnectclient.readrecords(request) if (response.records.isnotempty()) { val weightrecord = response.records.last() return weightrecord.weight.inkilograms } return 0.0 } list of all the data types used in the application: basalmetabolicraterecord bodyfatrecord heightrecord weightrecord checking query results now you are ready to run the test application on your phone and compare the results of the application with the samsung health application. the application can be tested on the device by running it directly from android studio. the data in both pictures are identical. you were able to successfully recover the data from the samsung health application using the health connect api. resources this blog is based on the bia viewer application. the entire code in this blog comes from this application. the application can be downloaded from: bia viewer version 1.0 (89,0kb) dec 12, 2022 enjoy your adventure creating the ultimate health application now you are ready to start using the samsung health application with the health connect api to enhance the capabilities of your application.

tracking exercise progress throughout its duration can be a problematic task requiring a lot of work from the developer. health services available on a samsung galaxy watch provide a precise and convenient way to gather statistics. in this blog post we cover different ways to gather exercise data. we created an example application called exercise monitor which gathers statistics about your heart rate and speed while running on a treadmill. in the application we use two ways to gather statistics: statisticaldatapoint for speed and manual heart rate tracking for comparison. you can download it here. we also include an example in this blog using cumulativedatapoint to gather statistics. the basics of connecting to health services are covered in the blog using health services on galaxy watch. let's start by setting up your exercise then continue by working with the exercise data. tracking data with statisticaldatapoint to obtain a statisticaldatapoint object, we need to read aggregated metrics in the exercise configuration builder: exercisecapabilitiesset = result.getexercisetypecapabilities(exercisetype).getsupporteddatatypes(); exerciseconfigbuilder = exerciseconfig.builder() .setexercisetype(exercisetype) .setdatatypes(exercisecapabilitiesset) .setaggregatedatatypes(exercisecapabilitiesset); after that we can read these metrics from exerciseupdate: map<datatype, aggregatedatapoint> aggregatemap = update.getlatestaggregatemetrics(); then we have to read the appropriate datatype from the map. in this case—speed: aggregatedatapoint aggregatespeed = aggregatemap.get(datatype.speed); the aggregatedatapoint object that is obtained can be an instance of two classes—either statisticaldatapoint or cumulativedatapoint (which we cover later): statisticaldatapoint sdpspeed = (statisticaldatapoint) aggregatespeed; from there we can easily read all important statistical data: double minspeed = sdpspeed.getmin().asdouble(); double maxspeed = sdpspeed.getmax().asdouble(); double avgspeed = sdpspeed.getaverage().asdouble(); and use them however we like in the application, for example updating text on labels: txtminspeed.settext(string.format("min speed: %.1f km/h", minspeed)); txtmaxspeed.settext(string.format("max speed: %.1f km/h", maxspeed)); txtavgspeed.settext(string.format("average speed: %.1f km/h", avgspeed)); that’s all we need to do—easy to read and fast to implement. in this case we have only read exercise data, but statistics can be obtained from other health services areas as well. tracking data manually now let's compare tracking data with statisticaldatapoint to tracking heart rate manually. first we need to create appropriate global variables required to track data—especially for the average heart rate that requires information about count samples we gather throughout exercising: double hrmin = 1000, hrmax = 0, hrsum = 0; int hrcount = 0; since our application assumes that we can exercise multiple times, we need to reset these global variables each time we stop and start an exercise. therefore, we need a separate function that resets the variables each time we start an exercise: void init() { hrcount = 0; hrmin = 1000; hrmax = 0; hrsum = 0; txtminhr = binding.txtminhr; txtminspeed = binding.txtminspeed; txtmaxhr = binding.txtmaxhr; txtmaxspeed = binding.txtmaxspeed; txtavghr = binding.txtavghr; txtavgspeed = binding.txtavgspeed; } we are ready to work on reading data from exerciseupdate. first we get the latest readings: map<datatype, list<datapoint>> datamap = update.getlatestmetrics(); then we read heartrate datatype from the map: list<datapoint> hrpoints = datamap.get(datatype.heart_rate_bpm); this returns a list of heart rates registered since the previous exerciseupdate callback. we have to iterate through every element and compare its values to our statistical points: for (int i = 0; i < hrpoints.size(); i++) { double curval = hrpoints.get(i).getvalue().asdouble(); if (curval == 0) continue; hrcount++; hrsum += curval; if (curval < hrmin) hrmin = curval; if (curval > hrmax) hrmax = curval; } this covers min and max values. as for the average, we have to remember that not every exerciseupdate may contain heart rate readings. if it doesn’t, we need to prevent division by 0: if (hrcount == 0) return; double avghr = hrsum / hrcount; now we are ready to update our text labels—with the exception of the minimum heart rate. if there were no readings, we leave it at 0 instead of updating it to the initialized value: txtavghr.settext(string.format("average hr: %.0f bpm", avghr)); if (hrmin < 1000) txtminhr.settext(string.format("min hr: %.0f bpm", hrmin)); txtmaxhr.settext(string.format("max hr: %.0f bpm", hrmax)); tracking data with cumulativedatapoint the third option to gather data statistics is using cumulativedatapoint. it is not used in the exercise monitor sample application, but we present an example application in this post. one example cumulativedatapoint can be used for is repetition statistics, like counting deadlift or dumbbell curl repetitions throughout sets. we start similarly to statisticaldatapoint by gathering the latest aggregate metrics. but, this time we read the repetition count and cast it to cumulativedatapoint: map<datatype, aggregatedatapoint> aggregatemap = update.getlatestaggregatemetrics(); cumulativedatapoint cdprepetitions = (cumulativedatapoint) aggregatereps; now we can measure total repetitions done throughout sets, as well as the workout start and end time: long totalreps = cdprepetitions.gettotal().aslong(); instant starttime = cdprepetitions.getstarttime(); instant endtime = cdprepetitions.getendtime(); enjoy your adventure creating an application that will track anything you want! we have shown you three ways of gathering exercise statistics. we encourage you to use statisticaldatapoint or cumulativedatapoint whenever possible, as they are well-designed to track exercise progress and might significantly simplify development of your fitness app. now you are ready to start gathering aggregated exercise statistics using health services data in the background in your application on galaxy watch with wear os powered by samsung. we encourage you to experiment on your own with data you wish to track and exercises you want to perform and see how easy and convenient it is!

health connect is a platform that enables you to integrate samsung health data with your applications, creating new opportunities for health applications that enhance the user's journey towards better health. using the health connect apis, you can, for example, retrieve a user's samsung health data, such as their exercise, sleep, and heart rate information, and send data to the samsung health application. this is the first blog post in a series that introduces you to health connect api features and how you can use them in your applications. let's begin by looking at how health connect interacts with samsung health data, and the basic workflow. understanding this is essential for creating applications that use data from samsung health and health connect. samsung health samsung health is an application that can be installed on android smartphones and tablets, and on galaxy watches. it can use the sensors on the device, including the galaxy watch's bioactive sensor, to measure the user's overall health data, including steps, exercises, heart rate, sleep, blood oxygen saturation and body composition. let's consider the most common scenario: the samsung health application is installed on both the galaxy watch and a smartphone. the application synchronizes the measurements between both devices and manages the user's health data securely on them. for example, if the user measures their blood pressure with the samsung health monitor application on their smartphone, the data can be shared to samsung health. health connect since the samsung health application supports various useful health data types and gathers data from all connected devices, developers are very interested in obtaining access to that data. consequently, samsung collaborated with google to build the health connect platform, which was released in may 2022. health connect enables applications to share health and fitness data across android devices with the user's consent. for more information about health connect, see health connect guide and health connect apis. samsung health has supported synchronizing data with health connect since application version 6.22.5, released in october 2022. the health connect apis support devices using android sdk 28 (pie) or higher. once the user has connected samsung health to health connect, new or updated data in samsung health is shared to health connect. this means that your applications can use the health connect apis to access samsung health data. samsung health synchronizes health data with health connect in both directions: when samsung health has new or updated data, it writes the data to health connect. when health connect has updated data, samsung health retrieves it. for example, a blood glucose meter connected to samsung health measures the user's blood glucose level. this data is saved in samsung health and then sent to health connect. similarly, whenever there is new blood glucose data in health connect, samsung health retrieves that data and saves it in samsung health. to demonstrate how data synchronization works, let's walk through an example of adding nutrition information to samsung health. to start data synchronization between samsung health and health connect, you must enable it in the samsung health application on your android device. from the settings menu, select health connect. if health connect is not installed, you are prompted to install it. the first time you access the health connect menu item in samsung health with the health connect application installed, you are asked for permission to share your samsung health data with health connect. select the data you consent to sharing, and select allow. samsung health and health connect are now linked and data is shared between them. to test the data synchronization, in samsung health, go to food tracker and create some nutrition data. in samsung health, go to settings > health connect, and select data and access. if health connect has received nutrition data from samsung health, a nutrition item appears in the browse data list. to view the synchronized data, select nutrition. data synchronization timing data synchronization between samsung health and health connect occurs on the smartphone side. to take advantage of health data collected by a galaxy watch, you must understand at which times the galaxy watch sends its data to the samsung health smartphone application. new or updated health data on each connected device is generally synchronized with samsung health in the following situations: the galaxy watch reconnects with the smartphone the user opens the samsung health application home screen on the smartphone the user pulls down on the samsung health application home screen on the smartphone however, some types of health data are synchronized differently: for battery conservation reasons, continuous heart rate data from the galaxy watch is not sent to the samsung health application on the smartphone immediately. however, manual heart rate measurements on the watch are synchronized immediately. enabling settings in samsung health to synchronize health data between samsung health and health connect please consider: using the latest samsung health and health connect versions. you can check them in google play. if you're interested in galaxy watch's data, check its version too. allowing data permissions through the following path: samsung health > settings > health connect > app permissions > samsung health (note that you must enter from the samsung health settings, not from health connect settings.) synchronizing samsung health data in: samsung health > settings > sync with samsung account > select the 'sync now' button in the bottom. accessing health connect apis if the user has synchronized their samsung health data with health connect, you can use the health connect apis to interact with it in various ways. for example: read and write data: you can retrieve data that has been shared from samsung health to health connect, and send data to health connect to be synchronized to samsung health. delete specific data records: you can remove a specific data point or data of a specific type within a time interval. aggregate and filter data: you can filter the retrieved data by type or tag and analyze it, such as determining the average, maximum, minimum, or sum of the values. session data: you can group data into sessions by time interval, such as to generate a sleep or activity session report. note : for security reasons, health connect data can only be retrieved by applications running in the foreground. the following table lists the various health data that can be synchronized between samsung health and health connect. samsung health data corresponding data type of health connect all steps stepsrecord blood glucose bloodglucoserecord blood oxygen saturation oxygensaturationrecord blood pressure bloodpressurerecord exercise session exercisesessionrecord totalcaloriesburnedrecord distancerecord exercise (heart rate) heartraterecord exercise (power) powerrecord exercise (speed) speedrecord exercise (vo2max) vo2maxrecord heart rate heartraterecord sleep session sleepsessionrecord sleep stage sleepstagerecord weight / body composition weightrecord body composition bodyfatrecord body composition basalmetabolicraterecord to get started with implementing health connect api functionality in your application: add the health connect api library dependencies to your application's "build.gradle" file. declare the health connect application package name in your "androidmanifest.xml" file. check that the user has installed health connect, then create the "healthconnectclient" instance. declare the permissions for the health data types you want to use. now your application is ready to use the health connect apis. other blog posts in this series will explore various health connect api use cases in more detail. related blogs reading body composition data with galaxy watch via health connect api

the key to successful marketing is building your brand and creating a loyal customer base that returns to your store to purchase again. you want consumers to recognize your brand, trust the quality, and anticipate new releases. building your brand takes time and effort. from designing compelling consumer marketing assets to expanding your customer reach, in this blog series, i offer suggestions to help grow your customer base and ultimately reach your marketing goals. please note: this article links to a number of products, services, and online groups. the links are for the readers' convenience, but do not represent an endorsement of the products, services, or online groups. build a fan base the number one common factor for all successful app developers is building a fan base. this is the best way for consumers to discover your app collection, learn about your latest releases, take advantage of your marketing promotions, and to stay up-to-date with your brand. one easy way to start building your fan base is to collect email addresses to be used in marketing campaigns or newsletters. there are many ways you can encourage your customers to share their email. coupons a great way to reward your fans and promote your apps is with coupons. however, you should limit the use of coupons so that your paid apps maintain value. if you offer large quantities of coupons, your customer base will not be as likely to purchase your apps. downloads from coupons should be less than 15% of your total downloads. a few ways to leverage the power of coupons: buy one, get one free. create a marketing campaign for current customers to post a review of the app they purchased. email a screenshot as proof and get a free coupon for another app from your collection. share on social media. customers post a photo/video of their purchased app on social media and tag your brand handle. you’ll receive a tagged notification and can send the customer a message with their coupon code. ask subscribers of your youtube channel to post comments on your videos. award a lucky subscriber with a free coupon. shoot videos or take photos? the answer to that question is, both. photos are needed for marketing your apps on galaxy store and can easily be posted to your website and social sites. if you need help creating photos for watch apps, check out asset creator and lifestyle photos. these free templates will help you quickly create great photos for use in marketing. photos are great for a quick view and can get you a fast like. however, with video sharing sites becoming extremely popular, studies have shown that users are more likely to post comments on videos than photos. this type of engagement helps boost your posts to the top of the algorithm and can raise your ranking within search results. videos are also a fantastic way to show your apps in action, giving consumers confidence before deciding to purchase. videos give you the ability to not only show the features of your app but also set the mood to help inspire customers to purchase. rather than simply animate a series of screenshots, filming an actual device can make videos more compelling. however, if you do not have access to a device, here are a few alternatives that can help: purchase a video template that you can edit in a program like adobe premiere. one popular site for templates is video hive. download a 3d device and animate using a program like adobe after effects. 3d objects of samsung devices can be purchased at hum3d. watch face designer urarity creates promotional videos that highlight their work. website give your brand a home by creating a website. with services like wix, squarespace, and divi for wordpress, building an engaging website can be smooth and simple. having a website gives your brand credibility and builds trust with consumers. your website can include your complete library of apps, the latest news, and make it easy for consumers to contact you. newsletters one of the most critical tools for success is offering a newsletter that consumers can subscribe to. delivering a newsletter is the quickest and most direct way to reach consumers. services like mailchimp and constant contact offer email marketing solutions for distributing newsletters. instant messaging services like telegram, wechat, and whatsapp also offer a way for you to build a community and reach your fans. facebook groups finding like-minded samsung fans is easy on facebook. a few groups you can join are watch face samsung, samsung galaxy watch group, themes for samsung, and samsung themes. groups like these allow you to not only discover what other designers are creating but provide you a platform for showcasing your work and receiving feedback from members. youtube subscribers being one of the largest media platforms, youtube is an extremely important channel for you to market on. posting videos of your apps not only help to be discovered by an extremely large global audience but youtube's simple subscribe and notify feature makes it easy for you to build a strong fanbase. social media platforms there are many social media platforms to leverage. truthfully, the more platforms you are on will increase the visibility of your content, helping to boost traffic on search engines like google. reddit, twitter & medium – social news, discussion, and micro-blogging websites. follow developers and designers, join groups, post about your latest apps, and start a dialogue with people having similar interests. instagram, tiktok, dribbble & pinterest – all can be used by designers for self-promotion and social networking. post your latest photos and videos, search to discover what other designers are creating, excite your audience, or become inspired yourself. galaxy store badges the best way to point consumers to your apps and track activity is with galaxy store badges. just one click and consumers can access your marketplace. creating a badge generates a link to your app detail page or brand page. use badges to promote your apps on websites, videos, social media, and more. badges are also a great way to determine the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. by using your samsung account, you can measure the click-through rate of your badge links, page views, and downloads. read how to get started with galaxy store badges here. marketing info and resources additional reads: strategies for success look for new releases of my blog series, strategies for success, where i continue to deep-dive into the many areas that can influence your market growth. additional topics to include: brand names building your fan base (this post) consumer trends selling your apps samsung galaxy store: tips for marketing your apps check out my video, samsung galaxy store: tips for marketing your apps to learn more about creating brands, designing marketing graphics, social media tips, badges, and banner promotions. marketing resources looking for even more info about promoting your apps? our marketing resources page contains helpful information on promoting your apps. you can view lists of relevant hashtags to use on social media, learn more about discounts and coupons, as well as download guidelines and kits to help you get started. developer forums post questions, search for answers, or just see what are the latest topics for discussion. visiting our developer forum is an excellent way to stay up-to-date on all things related to the galaxy ecosystem. to see the latest marketing topics, be sure to view the marketing thread.