Health data

11 Feb, 2026

Since upgrading to the Galaxy Watch 8 I have access to more health data than I did previously¹. I've been more and more caught up with different "scores" provided to me, despite not quite understanding what they mean. I'm going through the data this afternoon to try to derive some meaning and also set or adjust some goals.

Steps

This is not a new metric, but I've been meaning to adjust my daily target for some time now. Currently my daily target is 7,500 steps. There are days where I crush this number with ease, but most of the time I don't quite get there. Looking at the last 31 days, my average is 6,415 (total steps 198,875!). Looking further back at 12 months, my average is 6,759. That's pretty consistent then!

My first option is to set my goal to 6,500 but that feels too easy. Even though I'm mostly missing my target (often by 1000 steps or more), I think there is merit in setting a goal that is both realistic in terms of meeting it (and hitting that dopamine high for completing a "heart" ring in Samsung Health) and challenging myself to make sure I hit that goal.

With that in mind, I first thought 7,000 was a reasonable number - but that's only a difference of 500 steps. I'm not likely to hit that either. For now I'm setting it to 6,800 steps. Should I consistently reach that goal (even close to it, as an average) I'll increase it accordingly.

Sleep

Sleep is really tough for me. I don't get enough of it, and as a result I end up sleeping too much on the weekends: it starts with sleeping in (often until 10, or later!), and then there are afternoon naps. Naps are OK, but I feel like I need them during the day at work too! That's not so okay.

Samsung Health assigns a "sleep score" from 0 to 100:

That score is made up of several factors:

• Actual sleep time
• Deep sleep
• REM sleep
• Restfulness
• Sleep latency

I won't go into the full details of each of these but this seems to be a very thorough evaluation to achieve a specific score. Last night's score was 73, or fair, with "Deep sleep" needing the most attention. All the other factors were "good" overall, except for Sleep latency (the time it takes to fall asleep), which was "excellent".

I don't think it's possible to get a perfect 100 score, but my current average based on 7 days is 54. Some of that is directly related to being sick for most of last week leading to restlessness in bed and difficulty falling asleep, so I hope that as I get healthier my score will improve.

There's a "sleep coaching" option available if I want to try - it looks like it's a weekly "course" to help you build better habits for sleep. I'm curious to try it but I'd like fewer notifications.

In practice I should aim to get to try to sleep by 10:30pm, and set my alarm for 6:30; I've been setting it to 6am but I have plenty of time to do all my morning prep if I wake up a half-hour later and get to work on time. Lately I have found that I feel better in the morning waking up at 6:30 vs. 6. Problem solved?

Energy score

This score remains nebulous to me. You're given an initial score at the start of the day that appears to be made up of a combination of the previous night's sleep and the previous day's activity. Judging by the summary from today, it might also look at a few days in the past:

Time to recharge
Although your active time has decreased recently, this is actually a positive shift. In fact, a sudden increase in physical activity can sometimes put a strain on your body. It's best for you to continue balancing rest and activity for now.

Also, your energy score can increase during the day - I've seen it change after I recorded a nap, for example.

My daily average for this is 83 which puts me in a "good" range, so I don't think there's anything here I need to change that wouldn't be addressed by the two areas above: activity and sleep.

Stress

This isn't a new measurement as my last watch had the same feature, but I think the increased sensors on this watch improve the "accuracy" of the measurement. Look, I don't believe that this is an accurate reflection of my stress levels, but I think it's at least closer to my own observations.

My average is pretty steady so I don't know what else I can change, or if I should even bother.

Although...it recorded my stress as "high" right around the time when I would have been driving to work this morning so that sounds about right.

Conclusions?

None for now. I think it's likely the only score I'm going to pay attention to is the sleep score, but less in the sense of "getting a good grade" but seeing if the number reflects how I feel in the morning and throughout the day. The energy score is meaningless to me for the moment. Maybe if I start getting close to 100 every day I'll change my tune.

I hope my change in step targets will motivate me to walk more too!

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