Samsung has been creating watches for a while now and have so many out there floating around that you may not have even heard of them all. This said their newest watch being demoed at IFA 2014 in Berlin is the “Samsung Gear S Smartwatch”. The Gear S smartwatch as their previous watches (not including the Gear Live) will only work with Samsung’s Galaxy family of devices.
The Samsung Unpacked event at IFA shows a curved 2.2 inch Super AMOLED touchscreen display with its own 3G modem. As with the other Gear watches other than Android Wear this smartwatch runs Samsung’s own Tizen OS making it Galaxy compatible only. The watch looks to have a nice frame with platinum plating and a silicone rubber strap. The band can’t be changed with a standard band although Samsung says they will be making colored bands available for those wanting to change it.
Samsung Gear S Smartwatch Features
There is a nanSIM slot under the watch right beside a heart rate sensor. The watch itself also has 3G connectivity (hence the SIM slot) and Wifi connecting is also possible. Other features include Bluetooth 4.1, GPS, a pedometer, and a sleep tracker. The sleep tracker will tell track when you fall asleep and wake up showing how long you slept. This is not an automatic detection and you will have to tell it when you fall asleep and wake up.
Samsung Gear S Smartwatch for Fitness
We mentioned the heart rate sensor, pedometer and sleep tracker although the Tizen OS has some additions to make it even better. There is a UI to show graphs of heart rate over time as well as path tracking since it has its own GPS. Samsung has also mentioned other apps that will be available for the Gear S smartwatch like Nike+, HERE Maps and Facebook.
Samsung Gear S Smartwatch Interface
There have been many updates to tweak the interface like left swiping for notifications. You will also get the voice responses you’ve come to expect in watches like “reply” for SMS and “Call” for the phone features. The voice feature is cloud processed requiring a data connection to use although their is also an onscreen keyboard when needed.
Samsung mentioned “2 days of use” although with a 300mAh battery our assumption will be that one day is all you will get unless you just aren’t using the watch at all. There was also talk of an upgraded cradle that doubles as a portable power pack. This said it will only be an emergency power pack since it won’t fully charge the battery but only to about 50%. Price has not been released yet although Samsung says the “Samsung Gear S Smartwatch” will be available in October.