Samsung Isn’t Giving Up On Smartwatches

Damien McFerran 05/02/2019 – 8:32am

New bezel-free watch on the way

Smartwatches are still around, and the market for them is slowly growing, but few would argue that the wearables sector has lived up to its promise. Google has all but abandoned the fight in recent years and the Apple Watch continues to dominate the market, along with a range of cheap and cheerful fitness trackers from the likes of Fitbit and Xiaomi.

Samsung is another big player in this area who has tirelessly continued to push out products even though the sector is merely one step above being stagnant. The Korean company is about to refresh its wearables lineup with a new device which is being called the Galaxy Sport.

It is believed that the Galaxy Sport will be shown off at the Unpacked event later this month, where the company is going to officially lift the lid on the Galaxy S10 range, and its much-hyped folding smartphone.

The Galaxy Sport appears to follow the lead of the Galaxy Watch, Samsung's previous big-name wearable, and will be aimed squarely at fitness enthusiasts. It should come with some kind of water resistance as standard.

The leak – spotted by 91mobiles – also shows that Samsung has abandoned the fancy rotating bezel which was the hallmark of its previous smartwatches. This bezel was used to scroll through the UI in a similar way to the digital crown on the Apple Watch, and was arguably one of the most unique elements of the product. However, it's gone, replaced by two buttons and a dial, like Apple's aforementioned digital crown.

Samsung turned its back on Android Wear (now called Wear OS) so time ago in favour of its own Tizen OS, which the Galaxy Sport is expected to use. Hopefully the company has made some improvements to keep the software at the forefront of the wearables market.

According to the leak, 4GB of RAM will be included and there will be some ingrained connectivity with Samsung's Bixby AI assistant. You'll also be able to make payments via NFC, removing the need for you to take your phone out of your pocket when you're in a shop.

There doesn't seem to be anything particularly revolutionary about the Galaxy Sport, which could well be why the wearables market is in such a flat place right now; like smartphones, these devices aren't offering consumers any meaningful reason to upgrade their existing products.

Source: The Verge