LG May be Planning to Announce a 4G Enabled G Watch R2 at MWC in 2015 [Rumor]

[dgstorm]

Here's the hottest Android Wear news of the day. There's a new rumor floating across the web that LG is planning to reveal a 4G enabled version of their Android smartwatch at Mobile World Congress in 2015. According to the leaked intel, the device will be called the G Watch R2, and it will include a 4G/LTE radio for increased data speeds.

There's no word on whether the device would support calls over data, but it seems like that would be something worth implementing. What do you guys think? Could an LTE and cell phone enabled smartwatch replace your daily driver for basic duties?

Source: BusinessKorea

 

[FoxKat]

Seems like an awesome progression of technology. I would love it even more if it could make phone calls. I would use that as my phone with a Bluetooth headset, and then just keep my daily driver as a web technology device rather than a phone communication device. Still, I wonder just how much battery life you get out of a watch sized device that actually makes phone calls on the 4G network. Seems to me that I sorry you wouldn't get much talk time at all out of it. Since Verizon is going volte, it would be using data on the 4G network for sure.

The only concerns I have are how much more is my cellular carrier going to charge me to have data on this device along with all the other devices that I need to have data on? Fortunately I have unlimited data on my daily driver and my wifes. I just added my son to the world of 4G I gave him two gigs of data. But that 2 gigs of data on that smart phone is costing me an additional $30 a month. How much are they going to charge me to carry a watch that has 4G? I don't have a tablet that has 4G, for that same reason. What I really want of course is to have tethering on my phone and unlimited data and then I could have other WiFi devices on my body connected at one time.

For that same reason no, I'm not real pleased with paying $30 a month for wireless tether on my phone. I sure hope they manage to get root on this thing and are able to do the wifi tether hack, though I still have one phone that does have to hack functioning and I would just have to switch off between my daily driver and that phone for those times when I need wifi tethering.

 

[Ollie]

Tmobile charges $5 a month and gives you 500mb of data.

 

[FoxKat]

Tmobile charges $5 a month and gives you 500mb of data.

I could justify another $5 a month, but the real question is how much data will this little device use. If it's making phone calls on volte all communications will be data communications so it will tend to suck up more data than a phone / smart device would. That is unless Verizon is going to treat phone calls over LTE like normal phone calls and not charge for the data usage. That remains to be seen as far as I can tell.

 

[Ollie]

The calls should default to routing through the cell radio. Data calls would be optional wouldn't you think?

 

[FoxKat]

The calls should default to routing through the cell radio. Data calls would be optional wouldn't you think?

Normally one would think so, however with Verizon rolling out VOLTE, they want all future 4G devices to use VOLTE. This would include even things such as phone/watches, I would assume.

 

[Ollie]

I don't see this watch having on board 4G to surf the web. It has to be so that you use it as a stand alone device to make calls. It would be pointless to introduce 4G for something the watch achieves already with the Bluetooth version on the market.

I use less than a gig of data every month calling home from overseas. And that is calling several times a day. The 500mb that Tmo offers would almost cover it if it were used for calling only.