Most people know Samsung as a brand that makes appliances and devices like TVs, laundry machines, smartwatches, and smartphones.
Today, many of Samsung’s devices (like the very cool Galaxy Ring) are part of a connected ecosystem of products and services aimed at improving consumers’ health. For example, it has a wearables and smartphone lineup that uses data about users’ habits and physical activity to track progress and help them live a healthier lifestyle.
In 2020, Samsung was poised to officially launch a new initiative: Samsung Health.
The challenge
Samsung needed a partner to help it work with a selection of fitness studios to expand its digital footprint by creating tailored apps using third party content—Samsung Health was going to be on not only Samsung’s Smart TVs, but also the entire Samsung device ecosystem (similar to Apple’s health app).
Samsung recommended HFC as a partner for these fitness studios, each of which had its own unique content and brand positioning. The goal was twofold: attract fitness partners to build their own apps on Samsung’s Smart TV platform; and set up Samsung's own integrated health app, which leverages content from those providers.
Even though some of these partners had iOS or Android apps, this would be the first time creating an OTT app (“over the top”; a media service offered directly to viewers over the Internet—no cable needed) for all of them. Samsung Health chose HFC to help them stitch together a new OTT experience for these studios with customized front end apps specifically for the Samsung Smart TVs.
HFC’s approach
The team combined HFC’s expertise in TV-based experiences with the unique value-adds of Samsung Health to design and build individual experiences that felt just right for each individual brand.
To maximize speed and compatibility with other technologies in these companies’ tech stacks, they leveraged the Tizen OS’ Web Development framework to build ReactJS-based apps for these Samsung partners:
Obé, a digital-first startup and neighbor of HFC’s in Brooklyn that offers a limited catalog of free content on Tizen that viewers can try out and even have their workouts tracked in the Samsung Health app, as a no-risk lead-in to the full Obé offering.
Barre3, which has a network of physical studios around the world as well as a digital offering, opted for near-parity with their web experience, which gives existing subscribers access to its full content catalog. Users can also track workouts both in Samsung Health and across other Barre3 digital touchpoints as well.
Echelon, a digital-first streaming company and connected fitness machine company, launched an experience primarily aimed at existing subscribers. Although this experience initially didn’t have an integration to their workout bikes, it did come with a limited selection of free content as well as workouts that didn’t require connected equipment. In 2023, we helped Echelon launch Bluetooth pairing with connected equipment.
Each app logs activity to Samsung Health as well as user and video playback behavior.
The result: A revolutionary way to bring the fitness studio into living rooms across the country
Ultimately, HFC developed three out of the five Tizen partnership apps that were included in Samsung Smart TVs’ Health app, creating a seamless digital experience for all of their partners and stakeholders, including customers, builders, and designers.
Not only did HFC work with Samsung Health and its partners to significantly increase time and cost savings, this project also helped scale up the Samsung Health business and prepare it for sustainable growth.
Just a few of the outcomes of Samsung Health’s partnership with HFC:
- Initial app launch to tens of millions devices
- Robust apps that logged activity to Samsung Health as well as user and video playback behavior
- A solid foundation for continuous optimization and improvements for these apps after the initial launch on millions of TVs
Conclusion
Building an app isn’t easy and can come with challenges throughout the product lifecycle. Building a new platform of apps—ensuring compliance with different partners and adhering to unique brand identities for each one—is even bigger and more complex.
By bringing in an experienced partner with deep expertise in building connected experiences, Samsung Health was able to empower fitness studios to build custom TV apps quickly, and set its customers up for richer and healthier lives—right from their living rooms.
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