Tag: samsung

The Gear S will be available via four American wireless carriers.

American consumers who are interested in owning a smartwatch that is not a companion to their smartphone, will be able to obtain one of these wearable devices soon because Samsung announced earlier this week that its Gear S watch will be arriving at Sprint, At&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile this Autumn.

The Gear S is the first watch of its kind to act independently of a smartphone.

The South Korean electronics company unveiled its Gear S at the IFA 2014 in Berlin. It became the first smartwatch to be developed by a major brand with the ability to make calls and display notifications without requiring the assistance of a mobile phone.

This wearable has many notable features including a 2 inch curved Super AMOLED display. It also has customizable screen clock faces, 3G connectivity and is powered by the Tizen operating system, which a representative from Samsung claims will offer a library of over 1,000 apps at launch.

Even though the watch has a built-in microphone and speaker, it can be paired with a Bluetooth accessory known as the Samsung Gear Circle headset, which is a device that enables users to wirelessly listen to music and receive calls.

In addition, the wearable technology has fitness monitoring features. It is equipped with an optical pedometer and heart rate monitor. The band has been designed to measure the user’s biometric data throughout the day and lets them analyze this data via Samsung’s S Health app. Users who engage in running are also likely to appreciate the Nike+ app, which comes with the watch and helps monitor jogs.

The actual release date and price of Samsungs’s new smartwatch has yet to be released.

In an email that was received by Android Central from T-Mobile, the Gear S will be available by the wireless carrier’s Equipment Installment Plan and more details regarding the plan and watch will be made available in October.

Although it has not yet been revealed when Samsung’s Gear S smartwatch will be officially released for sale or how much it will cost, the wearable device is expected to be put on display in stores starting today, September 26.

“Gear Blink” could be the head mounted wearable that will rival Glass in 2015.

Although Samsung has recently introduced its Gear VR, which provides consumers with a new virtual reality experience, the latest rumors surrounding the South Korean electronics giant is that it may have another wearable tech gadget in the works that could potentially be competition for Google Glass.

The device may be launched next Spring and patent images reveal some of its potential features.

The speculated launch of the unofficially named Gear Blink (also nicknamed the Gear Glass) is sometime in Spring of 2015, possibly as early as March, and may be unveiled at the same time as Samsung’s Galaxy S6, according to a Tizen Experts report.

An augmented reality app that transforms the user’s hands into a virtual keyboard may be one of the Gear Blink’s features. The reason this is speculated is a filing from the KIPRIS (Korean Intellectual Property Rights Information Service) revealed patent images that show two versions of the keyboard, a one-handed variation and a two-handed one. The letters of the virtual keyboard are spaced out in a specific pattern, so that they correspond to different portions of the user’s fingers.

Additional patent images suggest the device’s potential design. Its appearance is not entirely unlike Google Glass, but it does look sportier. One image reveals an earbud and ear clip with a translucent display that curves in front of the user’s eye, similar to current Glass displays. Another image shows the device appears to be equipped with a microUSB cable for charging.

Innovative features like a virtual keyboard could give Samsung’s potential smartglasses a leg up over Google Glass.

It is expected that Gear Blink will be powered by a form of Tizen OS, but it is not known how these smartglasses would work with Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones or Gear watches. That being said, it is likely that connectivity will be possible among all of these gadgets.

Although there has yet to be an official announcement regarding a Samsung augmented reality headset, it would not be surprising if there was word about one soon. It will be interesting to see if Google Glass will have competition and how Google with respond to it.