We've been thinking a lot about the recent Canalys report about market share in the wearables business, and we've been trying to tease some actual revenue numbers based in the results they published. This is valuable because these companies are either private and don't publish revenues, or are public and don't break this market down in their financials. Canalys said that … [Read more...]
Samsung Files Wristwear Patents
A patent application is not a product (let alone a patent), but it's worth noting that Samsung's been revealed to have filed a few applications about wristwear interfaces. The filings, uncovered and collected by SammyToday and better explained by 9to5Google, seem to cover a lot of UI ground: the appearance of screens and interesting ways of interacting with the device using … [Read more...]
WSJ Says Samsung Will Ship Wrist Communicator This Summer
The Wall Street Journal is saying that Samsung, which already has several bits of wristware in its product line, will come out this summer with a wrist-worn communicator that will not require a cellphone. Citing "people familiar with the company's plans," the Journal says the device will run the open-source Tizen operating system (like the Gear Fit and Gear 2, but unlike the … [Read more...]
Fixya Crowdsources Five Smartwatch Reviews
We here have been writing and editing tech product reviews for going on three decades, so we claim some significant expertise about them. But Fixya's showing an interesting approach to the process we haven't seen before: collecting thousands of troubleshooting reports and drawing conclusions about the products. Fixya aggregated about 6,000 user reports about five smart … [Read more...]
Curved Li-Ion Batteries from Samsung
It's not always the way electronic companies work, but it makes sense that Samsung, which makes and sells the curved Gear Fit fitness tracker, would also make and sell a curved Li-Ion battery. The Samsung SDI carries 230 mAh of power, which is not a lot compared to a smartphone (2,000 mAh and up is pretty typical) but is rather a lot for wristwear. Now the question is, what … [Read more...]
Samsung Backs Away from Android; Will Ship Android Wear Watches This Year Anyway
When you're as big and aggressive as Samsung, you can afford to place big bets on several different things (although that strategy didn't work out so well for Nokia, did it?). Yoon Han-kil, the senior vice president of Samsung's product strategy team, told Reuters that his company will ship wristwear based on the Android Wear operating system later this year -- even though … [Read more...]
Galaxy Gear 2 Teardown from iFixit
One of our favorite sites, iFixit, takes apart new gadgets so you don't have to (unless you absolutely need/want to). Here's their teardown of the Galaxy Gear 2, which was surprisingly easy to get into. Just FYI... … [Read more...]
WSJ on Samsung Gear: Not Awful, But Not Great
Reviews of the new Samsung Galaxy S5 cell phone and Gear Fit wristwear unveiled at Mobile World Congress are starting to hit. The Wall Street Journal's got a pretty good write-up of the Fit, which is admiring but mixed. Its major points: Battery life is disappointing: two days with notifications on, four with them off. Interface is good Device is pretty and … [Read more...]
Hands-On With the Samsung Gear 2s and Gear Fit
As promised, Samsung unveiled the new Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo tonight at Mobile World Congress, along with a surprise: a sports band that fits neatly into its ecosystem. The new products, frankly, are lots better than we'd expected -- and vastly improved from last year's initial versions. (There also was the Galaxy 5 smartphone, a nifty piece of gear. But it's not wearable in … [Read more...]
Samsung Updates Its Little-Loved Gear to Gear 2
The Samsung Gear was one of the most derided pieces of wearable tech of 2013. So the Korean tech giant went back to the drawing board with the wristwear and revised it to be pretty much more of the same. We need to say this up front: we haven't clapped eyes or even hands on the Gear 2 or the more plastic Gear 2 Neo. It was introduced Sunday in the run-up to Mobile World … [Read more...]