Salsamatic: A Fitness and Music Tracker for Dancing

I made Salsamatic because I wanted my Apple Watch to keep track of a night of dancing, including the songs I wanted to hear again.

It's for Apple Watch and iPhone. Dance tracking is free, and you get 14 days of song recognition free from your first session.

I started dancing in earnest a couple of years ago and got an Apple Watch a few months ago. I like using Apple's Fitness app, but it's so… fitness. It's distracting on the wrist and makes something that's fun, and at times beautiful, feel like just another way of burning calories.

And I was sure it was undercounting steps. I'd dance for three hours at a social and get, by my estimate, around half the steps I expected.

I wanted something more oriented towards dancing: less obtrusive on my wrist, with step counting designed for dancing, and a few things I was curious about. How many times did I spin? Which songs did I dance the most to?

So I built it. Much like Absolute Timer, my boxing timer, it started with wanting an app I could use myself.

Steps, heart rate, and a surprising number of spins

Salsamatic tracks your dancing on Apple Watch. It records steps and heart rate, estimates time dancing and resting, and counts spins. Afterwards, you can open the report on your iPhone.

I do around 250 spins in a social. My partner, who does much more following, does around 1,000. I didn't realise this was going to become a competition…

Remember the songs without interrupting a dance

The most fun part, for me, is the automatic song list.

I've been to around 60 socials this year. At every one, at least half the set list has been new to me, usually more. When I hear a song I really like, I have to ask the DJ what it's called if I don't catch the lyrics, or if it has none. I'm not going to pull out my phone and Shazam it mid-song.

But I usually forget to ask.

It turns out I could get my watch to listen periodically during a session and identify the music. Salsamatic builds a set list of the songs it recognises, so I can look them up afterwards. It also shows how active I was during each song.

For one I really want to remember, I can tap the watch screen twice to like it. There's also a heart button on the Now playing page.

Afterwards, I can filter the list to the songs I liked, listen to previews, or export a playlist to Apple Music. Previews don't need an Apple Music subscription; playlist export does.

Try Salsamatic at your next social

I'm releasing Salsamatic today because it's a simple app I wanted for myself, and I'd like other dancers to have it too.

Dance tracking, spin counts, reports and trends work for free. Salsamatic Plus adds song recognition, with titles, artists and activity for each recognised song. You get it free for 14 days from your first session, with nothing to cancel. After that, you can subscribe to keep those extras and help support the app. The current options are US$1.99 a month or US$14.99 a year.

It does ask for permissions. Health and Motion & Fitness let it measure and save your dancing; microphone access lets it recognise songs. Your reports stay on your watch and paired iPhone, and workouts are saved to Apple Health. I don't receive your Health records or session reports.

For music recognition, the watch sends an audio fingerprint to Apple's Shazam service. Salsamatic doesn't upload or save microphone recordings. There's more detail in the privacy policy.

You'll need an iPhone running iOS 26 or later and a paired Apple Watch running watchOS 26 or later.

Try it at your next class, practice or social.

Hope you like it!