Samsung Planning to Announce a Round-faced Smartwatch at MWC [Rumor]

[dgstorm]

According to the latest rumor from Sammy-land, the Korean manufacturer is planning to introduce a round-faced smartwatch at Mobile World Congress in February of 2015. The device will reportedly have the model number SM-R720 and the codename Orbis.

What's particularly interesting about this smartwatch from Samsung is that the company is continuing their tradition of using their own Tizen OS instead of Android Wear. Here's a quote with more of the details,

LG launched its own round-dial version of the G Watch, aka the G Watch R (emphasis on R). The upcoming Samsung smartwatch we talk about gets some R-love too, which is perhaps why it’ll be called ‘SM-R720′, with a codename ‘Orbis’ for reference. In the past, we’ve broken news about a ring operated design that Samsung was working on, which is probably also what will feature on the Orbis. So, this new round Gear smartwatch is going to be quite a departure from the usual Galaxy gear fanfare, thanks to the (obvious) round design, and the OS: it’ll come with Tizen out of the box.

What do you think of Samsung's continued choice of skipping Android Wear to use Tizen instead?

Source: SamMobile

 

[LoneWolfArcher]

Some lead some follow.

 

[FoxKat]

Should be interesting to see if it has sensors at the bottom like the Moto360.

Sent from my Droid Turbo on Tapatalk.

 

[Jonny Kansas]

I'm not sure I like Sammy using Tizen and LG using webOS on these devices. The market is going to get too saturated with different software and, while that's good for people like the members of this forum who know what they want and understand the difference, I think it's only going to frustrate the average consumer.

I wish they'd do as they have with phones and shy away from their own software and add their own touches to Android Wear instead, though I get that they want to compete directly with the Apple Watch, so the fact that Android Wear only works with Android is probably exactly the reason that they're playing with their own software. If they've got something that relies solely on an app that can be downloaded on Android AND iOS, they're putting themselves in line to at least steal a few who don't want to wait or pay that super premium price for the Apple offering.

They'll be very smart if they keep their prices low.

Still, I think they're hurting the fragile fledgling ecosystem that is android wear and also wearables in general, but I suppose I could be proved wrong.

 

[mountainbikermark]

I'm not sure I like Sammy using Tizen and LG using webOS on these devices. The market is going to get too saturated with different software and, while that's good for people like the members of this forum who know what they want and understand the difference, I think it's only going to frustrate the average consumer.

I wish they'd do as they have with phones and shy away from their own software and add their own touches to Android Wear instead, though I get that they want to compete directly with the Apple Watch, so the fact that Android Wear only works with Android is probably exactly the reason that they're playing with their own software. If they've got something that relies solely on an app that can be downloaded on Android AND iOS, they're putting themselves in line to at least steal a few who don't want to wait or pay that super premium price for the Apple offering.

They'll be very smart if they keep their prices low.

Still, I think they're hurting the fragile fledgling ecosystem that is android wear and also wearables in general, but I suppose I could be proved wrong.

It's going to be like Android fragmentation on double steroids for developers.

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[Jonny Kansas]

It's going to be like Android fragmentation on double steroids for developers.

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I think you're gonna see quite a few devs not even bother making apps for the different OS's.

Android wear may be young, but it's already got a nice little jump start. Check out some of the G+ groups, especially the ones dedicated to watch faces.

It'll be interesting to watch, but I still wish they'd stop trying messing with software and just make the great hardware that we know they can produce.

 

[Ollie]

I think Android Wear will win this war.

 

[Jonny Kansas]

I think Android Wear will win this war.

I sure hope so!

I know the ecosystem is a bit different, because we had vanilla android phones for a longer period of time than we're seeing with watches, but just as there's a market for nexus phones, I believe there will continue to be a market for android watches.

 

[Ollie]

I sure hope so!

I know the ecosystem is a bit different, because we had vanilla android phones for a longer period of time than we're seeing with watches, but just as there's a market for nexus phones, I believe there will continue to be a market for android watches.

I just can't see Tizen winning simply because there isn't a viable Tizen ecosystem to support it. Samsung is the only vendor that I could see pulling off the move away from Google, but it would take too long.

WebOS is great on tablets, but without Android integration devs will avoid it. LG will basically be going at it alone.