How Samsung Galaxy Watch Calculates Your Max Heart Rate
Samsung starts at 220 − age, now layers Galaxy AI personal zones on top, and keeps the setting per exercise type rather than once for everything.
Samsung Galaxy Watch estimates your maximum heart rate with 220 − age, then offers to replace it in two ways: automatically, using personal intensity zones derived from your cardiovascular data, or manually, with a number you type in. The unusual part is where that setting lives. On a Galaxy Watch, max heart rate is stored per exercise type, not once for your whole profile.
The per-sport setting nobody finds
Open Samsung Health, pick an exercise type, open its settings through the three-dot menu, and you will find a heart rate zones section showing the current maximum with a choice between automatic and custom.
Set it for running and you have set it for running. Swimming, cycling and everything else keep their own values, and each has to be changed on its own.
This is genuinely the right design, badly signposted. Your running maximum usually sits several beats above your cycling maximum, because more muscle mass is working, and a single global number is wrong for at least one of your sports. Polar offers the same thing through sport profiles. Most brands do not offer it at all.
The cost is that an untouched Galaxy Watch is running an age formula separately in every activity you do, and fixing one does not fix the rest.
What 220 − age costs you
The formula carries an individual error of roughly ±10 to 12 bpm, and it is biased: too high for young athletes, too low for older ones. At 20 it predicts 200 where Gellish predicts 193. At 60 it predicts 160 where Gellish predicts 165. Garmin, COROS and WHOOP have all moved off it for exactly this reason.
Maksimal hjertefrekvens
185bpm
| Sone | Område | Hva den trener |
|---|---|---|
| Z1 | Restitusjon 93–111 bpm | Aktiv restitusjon og oppvarming; øker blodgjennomstrømningen uten å bygge tretthet. Veldig lett, RPE 1–2. Full samtale, knapt anstrengt pust. |
| Z2 | Utholdenhet 111–130 bpm | Aerob grunntrening, fettforbrenning og kapillærtetthet, brød-og-smør-sonen. Behagelig, RPE 3–4. Kan snakke i hele setninger. |
| Z3 | Tempo 130–148 bpm | Aerob kapasitet og muskulær utholdenhet; «moderat hardt» jevnt arbeid. Arbeidende, RPE 5–6. Bare korte setninger. |
| Z4 | Terskel 148–167 bpm | Laktatterskel, taket for ditt vedvarende konkurransefart. Hardt, RPE 7–8. Noen få ord av gangen. |
| Z5 | VO₂max 167–185 bpm | Maksimal aerob effekt og VO₂max via korte, harde intervaller. Veldig hardt til maksimalt, RPE 9–10. Ingen prating. |
Z1 · Restitusjon. Aktiv restitusjon og oppvarming; øker blodgjennomstrømningen uten å bygge tretthet. Veldig lett, RPE 1–2. Full samtale, knapt anstrengt pust.
Z2 · Utholdenhet. Aerob grunntrening, fettforbrenning og kapillærtetthet, brød-og-smør-sonen. Behagelig, RPE 3–4. Kan snakke i hele setninger.
Z3 · Tempo. Aerob kapasitet og muskulær utholdenhet; «moderat hardt» jevnt arbeid. Arbeidende, RPE 5–6. Bare korte setninger.
Z4 · Terskel. Laktatterskel, taket for ditt vedvarende konkurransefart. Hardt, RPE 7–8. Noen få ord av gangen.
Z5 · VO₂max. Maksimal aerob effekt og VO₂max via korte, harde intervaller. Veldig hardt til maksimalt, RPE 9–10. Ingen prating.
- Sonene er enkle prosentandeler av maksimal hjertefrekvens (Z1 50–60 % opp til Z5 90–100 %). De er lette å sette opp, men forutsetter at HRmax din er nøyaktig.
- Hjertefrekvensen ligger 1–3 minutter etter innsatsen og driver oppover i varme eller ved dehydrering («kardiell drift»), så bedøm korte, harde innsatser etter følelse.
En PDF med resultatene dine, pluss en QR-kode for å åpne dem igjen senere.
Enter a tested maximum to see where your boundaries actually belong before you type them into the watch.
Automatic zones, and the reason to be careful
Newer Galaxy Watches will calculate five personal intensity zones from your cardiovascular data rather than from the age formula. In principle that is an improvement, for the same reason WHOOP's learned maximum is: a number observed from your own training beats a population average.
In practice, be sceptical until you have checked it. Every learned maximum has the same weakness, which is that optical wrist sensors throw artefact spikes at high intensity and the model cannot tell a spike from a genuine peak.
There is also a practical wrinkle worth knowing: users have repeatedly reported custom maximum values being ignored or reset after software updates. Whatever you set, check it again after your watch updates rather than assuming it held.
How to get it right
Test the number. Build to hard over 10 to 15 minutes, finish with an all-out 60 to 90 second effort, uphill if you can, take the highest reading off a chest strap, repeat within two weeks and keep the higher figure. Not for anyone with cardiac risk or new to hard training. Full protocol in finding your maximum heart rate.
Set it per exercise type, in each activity you actually train.
Consider a better anchor. Percentage-of-maximum says nothing about fitness. If you have a tested threshold heart rate, LTHR zones place the boundaries better, and Karvonen is the middle option if you know your resting heart rate.
FAQ
What formula does Samsung Galaxy Watch use for max heart rate? 220 − age by default, with an option to switch to automatically calculated personal zones or a custom value.
How do I change max heart rate on a Galaxy Watch? In Samsung Health, open the exercise type, use the three-dot menu to reach settings, find heart rate zones, and choose custom.
Why do I have to set my max heart rate for every sport? Samsung stores it per exercise type. It is more accurate if you use it, since running and cycling maximums differ, but it means one change does not carry over.
My custom max heart rate keeps resetting. Why? Users have reported custom values being ignored or lost after updates. Re-check the setting after your watch updates.
Are Galaxy Watch heart rate zones accurate? Only as accurate as the maximum underneath them. The default is an age estimate. Test yours and enter it per sport.
Other brands
- Garmin uses Tanaka and auto-raises HRmax from peaks.
- Apple Watch publishes no formula at all.
- Fitbit uses 220 − age with reserve-based zones.
- WHOOP seeds with Gellish and learns from your data.
Sources
- Samsung Community on setting max heart rate per exercise
- Samsung Community on custom heart rate zones
- Tanaka, Monahan & Seals (2001), the 208 − 0.7 × age formula
- Gellish et al. (2007), the 207 − 0.7 × age formula
Cover photo by Dinkun Chen, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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