Samsung Electronics unveiled its first Samsung Smart TV in 2011. In 2015, the company introduced its Tizen OS and has continued making progress in this field with a view to provide users with differentiated services. But how exactly has Samsung adapted to recent changes in the way people are consuming content? What efforts have been made to advance Samsung Smart TVs into becoming better platforms? Samsung Newsroom spoke to Seline Sangsook Han, Vice President of Service Business Team, Visual Display Business at Samsung Electronics, to learn more.

Q. Recently, a growing number of consumers have been putting more value on user experience instead of TV price or design when purchasing TVs. What is driving this change in purchase trends?

In the past, a user’s media experience came just from watching the broadcast programs provided by their set-top box or TV tuner. Under these conditions, the resolution of the TV’s screen and the way it matched the space it was placed in was the top priority for those purchasing TVs.

However nowadays, the way we consume media content is diversifying and the content itself is becoming richer and more varied. As such, users are now prioritizing their own unique experiences and considering how their devices fit into their own individual tastes and environments. On top of this, TVs are evolving into smart devices, meaning that the scope of their experience offering is expanding. All of these factors are driving the current change in trends.

Q. Are industry insiders noting an experience-centric user trend?

Samsung Electronics started to provide smart TVs in 2011 and emerged as the industry leader. However, back then, users were less involved with the smart TV trend and there were few partners active in the market. These days, smart TVs are becoming increasingly important, and Samsung’s Smart TV has become a pivotal partner. Trend analysis shows us that, today, people are enjoying binge-watching shows more than they are watching shows in real-time. According to our internal research, people are spending more time watching Over-the-top (OTT) content on Samsung Smart TVs than they are watching live content. U.S. users subscribe to an average of three OTT services, demonstrating that smart TV markets are on the rise globally.

Q. How is the Samsung Smart TV adapting to these changing trends?

Samsung is committed to keeping up with changing trends and the Samsung Smart TV has gone through extensive research for better user experiences. One of our top priorities has been figuring out how to provide users with the best possible experience of finding and enjoying the content they want to consume.

Samsung offers a content forwarding discovery service called Universal Guide to help consumers make choices easily by recommending content tailored to individual user preferences. In addition, Samsung TV Plus is available for users to enjoy a variety of channels on – news, entertainment, movies, TV shows and more. This is a free TV service, with no strings attached.

On top of this, users can also appreciate leading art works on their TV via the Art Store of lifestyle TV The Frame and enjoy indoor workouts through Samsung Health, a functionality that was released this year. These services particularly benefit those who have experienced unexpected changes in their day-to-day lives this year and are thus finding themselves staying at home more.

Q. What does it take to make a great TV platform?

Nobody can make a great platform while working alone. When we appreciate what an ecosystem means, a great platform can emerge.

From the perspective of partners, high quality technologies and user convenience should be ensured. Furthermore, for the sake of a platform’s users, enriching and useful content and user convenience are essential features, as these factors are what drive an engaging user experience. Samsung, as a platform provider, needs to create a viable marketplace with which to build a mutually beneficial business model in order to drive continued investment and partner growth and ultimately improve user satisfaction. At the end of the day, relentless efforts driving strategies tailored to one’s platform is what can bear fruit.

Q. What makes the Samsung Smart TV unique in terms of its platform?

The Samsung Smart TV was created as a television device. Over the past 14 years, Samsung has been ranked number one in the TV industry, and during these years, Samsung has continued to build its leadership across the markets as well as cultivated a robust user base. As a service platform, the Samsung Smart TV was not a leader at all in the beginning. Thanks to Samsung’s market leadership and product offering as a TV manufacturer, we have been able to reach users around the world, and this user base helped the company attract partners. Considering that TVs are a home necessity and play a pivotal role in consumers’ media consumption, the Samsung Smart TV has an unbeatable position and capabilities in terms of product manufacturing and supply, user experience design and ecosystem operation based on its own platform.

These days, fewer people are watching TV in programs real-time, but are still tending to consume other types of media content on their TVs. Many consumers choose bigger and higher quality TVs in order to enjoy more immersive watching experiences. Today, TVs are more than just viewing screens. TVs have seen their uses expanded into the fields of workout, productivity, entertainment and home Internet of Things (IoT). Samsung’s Smart TVs are becoming an integral part of their users’ daily lives, displaying the product’s boundless potential as a platform.

Q. The 2018 Samsung Smart TV was presented as a device capable of supporting various activities, while the 2019 Samsung Smart TV was defined as a provider of customized services for any and all user preferences. How would you define the 2020 Samsung Smart TV?

The 2020 Samsung Smart TV prioritizes delivering a next-generation screen experience to users. This year’s Samsung Smart TV enables users to harness new services, a range of partner applications and Samsung TV Plus in order to bring the content they want right in front of them easily and quickly. What defines the 2020 Samsung Smart TV is the facilitation of services like Bixby, Alexa and Google Assistant for easy access to such areas as art, fitness and gaming features across such applications as Samsung Health and Art Store.

Q. Can you share one useful tip for Samsung Smart TV users?

I prefer to pick the content I want to watch and enjoy it whenever I find it convenient to. I make good use of both Korean and international OTT services, as well as Samsung TV Plus, from Friday night through to the following morning and have developed my own TV guide packed full of exactly the content I want to enjoy. While streaming, I am also able to get my laundry done, as my Smart TV will let me know when my machine’s cycle is complete so that I don’t forget to take my laundry out of the machine.

I also want to recommend the Art Store of The Frame, one of Samsung’s lifestyle TVs, as this lets you curate artworks that not only match your tastes, but also your mood or even the weather – a small luxury I very much appreciate in my home.

Q. With the advancement of technologies, things we have previously only imagined are increasingly becoming a reality. Would you share how you think the Samsung Smart TV will evolve in the long term?

The Smart TV I dream of is one with a constraint-free experience, whatever and whenever you want to do. This means a literally seamless experience when watching, playing or working with screens, controlling your devices and connecting to the world, for each and every consumer, regardless of their situation. I believe that this is the beauty of the technologies and innovations that Samsung can do better than any other.

As people around the world continue to spend more time than usual at home, reports suggest that they have not stopped prioritizing their fitness. In a recent study from Global Web Index 85% of global consumers reported undertaking some form of exercise in recent months, with 51% relating that home workouts are their preferred form of exercise.

A March 2020 survey found that 16% of adults in the U.S. were watching an increased number of online exercise videos, in another study 60% of young people in the U.K. said they had been finding exercise helpful in managing their mental health these days.

All across the globe it can be seen that spending more time at home has not robbed people of their passion for staying fit and healthy. Below, we discuss three leading fitness brands whose services Samsung Health has made available through the 2020 Samsung Smart TV platform¹ to ensure that consumers are empowered to stay healthy from home now, and into the future.²

Thanks to the fully immersive picture quality of Samsung’s 2020 QLED 8K TV range, Samsung Health users can now enjoy a whole new standard of at-home wellness content on vibrant, ultra-large screens.

Calm – Making the World Happier and Healthier

‘Calm’ is a leading global health and wellness brand whose app ranks number one in the mental fitness category. The Calm app contains an extensive library of mindfulness, meditation and sleep content that Samsung Smart TV consumers receive access to free of charge.

Calm provides a range of meditation programs, music tracks and sleep stories that offer a wide array of durations and difficulty levels. The app’s mindfulness programs, for instance, offer a 7-day option for beginners and a 21-day option for advanced users. What’s more, Calm’s services are delivered to you through the pleasingly familiar voices of Hollywood celebrities including Matthew McConaughey and Stephen Fry and singer Leona Lewis, who have all recorded their voices for the app. Calm Kids content available on Samsung Smart TVs also allows families to get immersed in mindfulness, featuring everything from meditations with Thomas & Friends to piano lullabies from Disney classics like Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Mulan.

Fitplan – Empowering You to Become Your Best Self

Fitplan is a dynamic mobile app that partners with world-class trainers to allow them to share their proven workout methods and empower users. With Fitplan users can identify their ideal physique, and ensure that they are working towards attaining it while also embracing a healthier and fitter future.

Using their Samsung Smart TVs, consumers can get free access to six workout plans and 50 different classes featuring five professional trainers – Melissa Alcantara, Natalie Jill, Brittne Babe, Jana Webb and Cam Speck. Through the Fitplan app users can set weekly goals, keep track of their stats, upload progress photos and add friends to share progress and plan joint workouts. What’s more, the app’s ‘form check’ feature helps users ensure that they’re performing each exercise properly.

Jillian Michaels – Giving You the Keys to a Healthier Life

Jillian Michaels is a well-known American personal health and fitness expert, author and television personality. The Jillian Michaels Fitness App provides users with access to interactive daily workouts, and additionally offers a premium paid service that provides customized exercise programs in multiple modalities that cater to individuals of all fitness levels.

Currently, Samsung Smart TV users can access a 28-day, curated workout plan, with adjustable beginner, intermediate and advanced levels. For users who are short on time, the app provides brief 7-minute workouts so that consumers can inject a little movement into their days when and where they can.

If anything, staying fit and active has only become more important as people spend increased amounts of time at home. Now, with Samsung Smart TV partnering with leading fitness brands, users can rest assured in the knowledge that a wide array of workout and wellness materials are available at their fingertips.

¹ 2020 Samsung Smart TV – Premium UHD TU8000 above and Lifestyle TVs
² Service availability and content partners may vary by country.

“The whole intention of Samsung Health is to motivate our consumers to live healthier lives by meeting them wherever they are, across Samsung platforms,” said Won-Jin Lee, Executive Vice President of Service Business at Samsung Electronics. “We knew that to do this, we needed to develop a user-centric and immersive platform that offered a variety of in-home fitness and wellness options. Given the current climate, we hope that the launch of Samsung Health makes it easier for our consumers to prioritize their physical and mental wellbeing on a daily basis.”

Wellness Your Way

Samsung Health enables consumers to customize their own health journeys by connecting them to premium content, a personalized performance dashboard, goal-based challenges, and intelligent features that keep them motivated and focused on achieving their wellness goals – both at home and on-the-go.

Personal custom features of Samsung Health include:

• Personalized Profiles: Consumers can create individual accounts for themselves as well as for family members. Each account receives personalized workout recommendations based on preferences.
• Dashboard: Users can connect to Samsung wearables and accompanying mobile app to see their personal stats flow through into one centralized place. They can keep track of the daily stats synced from all devices, analyze progress, and achieve desired goals.
• Content Browse: Samsung Health on TV provides a content-forward experience that allows users to access and consume fitness and wellness content from leading industry partners on the biggest screens available. Everyone has an option to choose from a diverse range of workouts provided by Samsung Health partners, whether in need of a daily meditation or a HIIT workout.
• Routines: Samsung Health helps keep the day energized with individual routines. After consumers set a routine and when the TV is on, it will give a reminder to play personal fitness or mindfulness content according to the schedule. Whether indulging in a morning workout or finishing the day with an evening relaxation session, the routines ensure that every workout plan is carried out easily.
• Challenges: Samsung Challenges also adds cheer and fun to the activities. Users can commit to a personal goal or invite family members to participate in a shared goal. Ranging from workouts to meditation goals, users can enhance motivation and performance throughout the journey to a healthier lifestyle.

Home Is Where the Health Is

Samsung Health also provides fitness and mindfulness content to create a comprehensive workout routine from the comfort and privacy of home. Consumers can browse a range of modalities including yoga, mindfulness, strength training, stretching, barre, pilates, dance, cardio and more.

The immersive app experience provides content-first discovery and personalized recommendations across meditation and fitness routines from premium brands that users know and trust – including Calm, obé fitness, barre3, Echelon, Fitplan, and Jillian Michaels Fitness. Only on Samsung Smart TVs can users enjoy select free content from all partners for the first year including more than 5,000 hours of free, in-home content and upwards of 250 instructive videos that vary in terms of exercise level and discipline. Following the launch of Samsung Health, the partner ecosystem will continue to expand, so that consumers are always able to discover something new or find content that suits their specific fitness needs.

Select Free Premium Content From the Best Fitness and Wellness Brands

Free mental fitness content including Meditation, Sleep Stories, and Music, in addition to the brand’s popular 10-minute daily meditation offering, the Daily Calm.

Free fitness and training content including six “plans” and 50 classes, access to five trainers with high quality audio and video tips, progress tracking, and in-app community features.

Interactive daily workouts and paid premium customized exercises for all fitness levels including an exclusive 28-day workout plan curated for Samsung TV owners.

20 free trial classes including boutique cycling and rowing classes, strength training, boxing, yoga, pilates and more.

20 free classes for Samsung Smart TV users including Strength, Sculpt, Circuit, Dance, HIIT, Dance-HIIT, Pilates, Yoga, Barre, Bounce, Boxing, prenatal and holiday/event themed classes – refreshed every 2 weeks.

50 pieces of free content to take care of the body and mind including full body workouts, strength & conditioning, mindfulness, cardio and more.

Samsung Health redefines at-home fitness by delivering additional utility right from Smart TVs and across other devices. It combines convenience, quality and analytics to create an all-in-one fitness system for every member of the family, with customized recommendations and suggested challenges. Between lively Zumba classes, invigorating HIIT workouts and calming sleep stories, there is an option designed to fit every consumer’s needs, goals and preferences.

For more information on Samsung Health, please visit: https://www.samsung.com/us/samsung-health/TV.