Honestly, most of us have forgotten what it feels like to wear a fitness tracker that doesn't try to be a second smartphone. I was digging through a drawer of old tech the other day and found my old Samsung Gear Fit 2 Pro. It’s dusty. The proprietary charging cradle is probably lost in a box somewhere in the garage. But holding it again reminded me of a specific era in wearable tech—around 2017—when Samsung actually cared about the "fit" part of the name more than the "smart" part.
Modern watches are huge. They’re heavy. They’re basically glass pucks strapped to your wrist that buzz every time someone likes a photo on Instagram. The Samsung Gear Fit 2 Pro was different. It was sleek. It curved. It actually followed the anatomy of a human wrist rather than forcing your wrist to adapt to a flat piece of sapphire crystal. If you’re looking at one of these on the secondary market today, or just wondering why your current Galaxy Watch feels so clunky, there is a lot to unpack about why this specific device was a high-water mark for Samsung design.
The Curved AMOLED Obsession
Samsung's display team was showing off back then. The 1.5-inch Super AMOLED screen on the Samsung Gear Fit 2 Pro wasn't just bright; it was vertically oriented and curved. This seems like a small detail until you try to run with a standard square or circular watch. A vertical screen allows for a much narrower band. It stays out of the way.
The colors were, and still are, ridiculous. We’re talking about a 216 x 432 resolution. On a screen that small, the pixel density makes text look like it’s painted on the glass. When you’re swimming—which was the big "Pro" selling point—that high contrast is the only thing that makes the screen readable under turbulent water.
What the "Pro" Actually Meant
When the original Gear Fit 2 launched, it was decent. But it had a massive flaw: it hated water. You could sweat on it, but you couldn't take it into a pool. Samsung fixed this with the Samsung Gear Fit 2 Pro by bumping the water resistance up to 5 ATM. That’s 50 meters.
They didn't just stop at hardware seals. They partnered with Speedo.
Remember the Speedo On app? It was supposed to be the gold standard for lap tracking. In practice, it was a bit finicky to sync, but the actual tracking was solid. It could detect your stroke type—whether you were doing a messy freestyle or a disciplined breaststroke—and count your laps with surprising accuracy. For a device that weighs practically nothing, having a dedicated swim tracker was a huge deal in 2017. Most people were still wearing those bulky Garmin chest straps or just counting laps in their heads.
The Tizen Problem (And Why It Kind of Worked)
We have to talk about the software. Samsung was still pushing Tizen back then. Before they crawled back to Google for Wear OS, Tizen was their baby.
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It was fast.
Like, really fast. Because Samsung owned the hardware and the software, the interface on the Samsung Gear Fit 2 Pro was buttery smooth. You swiped sideways to get to your widgets. The "back" and "home" buttons on the side were tactile and clicky. There was no lag. You don't get that "thinking" circle you see on modern budget trackers.
The downside? The app store was a wasteland. Unless it was a first-party Samsung app or one of the few big partnerships like Spotify or Under Armour, you were out of luck. But for a fitness tracker, did you really need Uber on your wrist? Probably not.
The Spotify Game Changer
This was the first time I remember a fitness band really getting music right. The Samsung Gear Fit 2 Pro had 4GB of internal storage. About 2GB of that was actually usable for your own files.
It supported offline Spotify playlists.
This sounds standard now, but it was revolutionary at the time. You could pair your Bluetooth headphones directly to the band, leave your massive phone at home, and go for a run with your "Heavy Metal Lifting" playlist. It gave you a sense of freedom that most trackers at that price point couldn't touch.
Battery Life: The Reality Check
Let's be real for a second. Samsung claimed 3 to 4 days of battery life.
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They lied.
Well, maybe they didn't lie, but they certainly tested it in a vacuum where no one ever touched the screen or used the GPS. In the real world, if you were using the Samsung Gear Fit 2 Pro to track a 45-minute run with GPS on and music playing, you were charging that thing every single night.
The GPS was a notorious battery hog. It was accurate—using GLONASS alongside standard GPS—but it drained the 200mAh battery like a sieve. If you’re buying one used today, keep in mind that lithium-ion batteries degrade. A seven-year-old Gear Fit 2 Pro might only last 6 hours. That’s just physics. You can’t fight chemistry.
Why Nobody Makes This Form Factor Anymore
You might be wondering why every company shifted to the "mini-smartphone" look. It’s mostly about screen real estate for notifications. Reading a long text message on a vertical 1.5-inch screen is a chore. You have to scroll forever.
Also, the curved glass was expensive to manufacture. It was a durability nightmare, too. If you dropped the Samsung Gear Fit 2 Pro face-down on a tile floor, that beautiful curve acted like a stress point. Most of them ended up with "spider-web" cracks because there was no raised bezel to protect the edges.
Modern watches like the Galaxy Watch 6 or the Apple Watch are built like tanks in comparison. They use flat sapphire or Gorilla Glass DX+ and surround it with metal. The Fit 2 Pro was mostly plastic and glass. It felt premium, but it was fragile.
The Under Armour Partnership
Samsung went all-in on the Under Armour suite. You got a year of MapMyRun, MyFitnessPal, and Endomondo (RIP) for free. For people who were already deep in those ecosystems, the integration was seamless.
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The heart rate sensor was also upgraded for the Pro model. It switched to "continuous" tracking rather than "interval" tracking. This meant your daily calorie burn estimates were actually based on what your heart was doing, not just an algorithm's guess based on your steps. It was surprisingly close to the data I got from a Polar chest strap, usually within 3-5 beats per minute during steady-state cardio.
Dealing with the Proprietary Charger
If you lose the charger for a Samsung Gear Fit 2 Pro, you’re in trouble. It’s a magnetic cradle with four little pins. It’s not USB-C. It’s not Qi wireless. It’s this specific, weird little dock.
This is the biggest headache of owning older Samsung gear. If those pins get dirty or oxidized, the watch won't charge. You have to clean them with a Q-tip and some isopropyl alcohol. It’s a ritual that every long-term owner knows well.
Is it Worth Buying in 2026?
Probably not for your main tracker. The software support is gone. Samsung Health has moved on, and while the band still syncs, you won't get any new features or security patches.
However, if you find one for $20 at a garage sale and you just want a dedicated MP3 player/GPS tracker for muddy trail runs where you don't want to risk your $800 phone, it’s a steal. The hardware is still gorgeous. The screen still puts modern LCD trackers to shame.
Actionable Steps for Current Owners
If you still have a Samsung Gear Fit 2 Pro sitting in a drawer and you want to revive it, here is exactly what you need to do:
- Deep Clean the Sensors: Take a toothpick and gently scrape around the heart rate sensor glass and the charging pins. Skin oils and dried sweat create a film that ruins accuracy and charging.
- Factory Reset is Mandatory: Tizen gets "gunked up" over time. If the interface feels laggy, back up your data to Samsung Cloud and do a full hard reset. It’ll feel like a new device.
- Check the Band Strips: The proprietary lugs on the strap are prone to snapping. Don't pull them too hard. If they feel brittle, order a third-party silicone replacement before the watch flies off your wrist during a workout.
- Optimize the Battery: Turn off "Always On Display" and set the brightness to 4 or 5. You don't need level 10 brightness indoors, and it will give you an extra 10 hours of life.
- Manual Sync: If the auto-sync with the Galaxy Wearable app fails (which it often does on newer Android versions), open the app on your phone and manually pull down on the home screen to force a Bluetooth handshake.
The Samsung Gear Fit 2 Pro represents a time when tech companies weren't afraid to experiment with weird shapes. It wasn't perfect, but it was comfortable. Sometimes, that’s all you really want from a piece of plastic strapped to your arm.