According to The Wall Street Journal, Samsung is aiming to produce a smartwatch with built in mobile phone, to remove the need to pair with a phone at all.
The watch will, apparently, run Samsung’s new Tizen OS, which has just started to turn up on the company’s range of new watches for 2014. The original Galaxy Gear ran a heavily customised version of Android, and there are rumours an update will be released that will switch that watch to Tizen at some point soon too.
According the article, the watch would be capable of sending and receiving data on its own, without the need to be tied to a phone. Indeed, it would also be able to make calls, suggesting that this is a return to the fully-integrated phone watch that surface a few years ago, notably LG’s version, which cost a large amount of money and didn’t sell well.
But the idea is a good one, at the very least it would allow Samsung to make a watch that wasn’t reliant on one of its own devices to operate. That would open it up to more users who might not want to change their phone, or who might be mid-way through an existing contract. The question is, of course, about affordability. Any cellular-enabled device has a high purchase cost, and ongoing billing too. This might put many people off.
Perhaps most interesting of all though, is that Samsung isn’t giving up on smartwatches. It’s already the leader in the field, and this news suggests that it intends to be the name for these devices from now on.
Read more:
CES 2009: LG Shows First ‘Market Ready’ 3G Watch
Via: The WSJ
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.