If you have not been using Samsung Health as your default health tracking app, you probably don’t know that you are able to use the app even without signing in to your Samsung Account. Well actually, even if you’ve been using it, you probably might have not realized that you can use it without even having to sign in. But all that is about to change finally as logging in to your already existing Samsung account will be mandatory for the Samsung Health app by January 2021.
It’s actually strange that it’s taken them this long to actually make the Samsung part of Samsung Health important and a requirement. When they initially rebranded S Health to Samsung Health four years ago, they still allowed users to use the app without having to sign in to your Samsung Account. It was probably a pro-consumer policy as you could just skip the prompt to log in back then but it was also pretty limiting. The percentage of those who will use the health app and who are not Samsung users is probably pretty small.
So now, finally, they are making the integration a requirement, as reported by SAM Mobile. When Samsung Health version 6.15 rolls out in its stable version, you’ll be asked to log in to your Samsung Account or if you don’t have one yet, to create a new account. This will allow users to back up their data to their account and then sync it and access it across various Samsung devices where they are also signed in.
Two years ago, Samsung decided to discontinue third-party integrations on Samsung Health and so we thought integration to accounts would happen back then. The fact that it took them a couple of years doesn’t bode well for the whole ecosystem. They’re not the only major company that has problems with integrating their own products for some reason but something as simple as logging in to your account was a huge miss.
Hopefully, this will bring more benefits and features to Samsung Health. The stable version of the update is expected to roll out by January 21, 2021 so better start using that account for Samsung Health starting now.