Wrist SLAP: Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch hands-on Plenty has been said about the tech behind the Galaxy Gear already on El Reg, here and here, so what’s it actually like up close? It certainly looks a chunky beast but it’s a good deal lighter than you might think. Samsung Galaxy Gear Looks bulky but feels light and that black circle on the strap is a video camera – yikes! …
The first iPhone wasn't 3G (because it would have made the battery life a standing joke) and it didn't allow copy/paste (presumably to make the UI simpler). A case can be made for those omissions.
Samsung don't like omitting anything it seems (to delight of my inner geek), putting in more features than are needed, and producing something that is too pricey and too bulky for many.
Where smart-watches might come into their own is amongst the more frail amongst us- the Galaxy Gear watch already features an emergency help feature (pressing the power button three times repeatedly sends text messages and location information to pre-selected contacts) and a heart-rate monitor.
>I know they want to try and build a brand but it's built on Android so should work with any Android handset.
Good point. I'll wait and see what turns up on XDA-forums down the line.
To be fair though, most current Android phones don't have the right Bluetooth hardware- though I'm sure that will be different in a years time.
This is v1.0 for early adopters and as such, aimed at people who are happy with limitations to live at the bleeding edge. Wait for v2.0 or iWatch for something slicker.
If it takes off, you can bet Android will get built-in support to fix these issues.
It doesn't even work with the Galaxy S4 yet.
I want to be able to mix and match devices. Someone might buy the watch and the quality (or lack there of) might influence their decidion to switch to a Samsung phone on their next upgrade.
And constant bluetooth? That's going to suck battery.
Samsung's decision to limit this watch to some specific handsets makes more sense if you see the Gear as dipping a toe in the pool. It's a Mark I product.
Not many people will buy a smart watch right now - even those interested in the concept will choose to wait until (if) such things mature a little bit. So that leaves the determined first adopters as the target market, many of whom are the sort to have bought a Galaxy S4 or Note already because they are amongst the highest spec'ed handsets around.
Samsung probably don't expect to sell millions of this model, haven't tooled up for it- so if supply of the Gear is limited they might as well limit the list of compatible handsets to those that show the Gear off to its best (or at least the phones with the right hardware and that Samsung have control over).
6. It has to be turned on each time you want to use it.
i've been using an iPod nano on a watch strap for the last 18 months or so and it's surprising how much of a problem it isn't having to turn it on to check the time on a watch.
just goes to show, i guess, how rarely i find myself needing to know the time (sitting in front of a computer for the majority of every day, it's far easier just to look in the bottom/top corner of the screen depending on if i'm at work/home
but the rest of points i totally agree with
This makes me more likely to go the Google Glass route than the smartwatch one.
Locked to a single manufacturer ? Who do they think they are ? Apple ?
We expect it from the fruity one. This is not a good move if you want to sale a lot of products, people arn't going to buy a Samsung phone just for the watch but they might have bought the watch if it worked with any Android device above a certain version say Jelly Bean and above.
Now when are those glass devices due again ? ? ?
>http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/30/4677066/google-acquires-android-smartwatch-manufacturer-wimm-labs
Apparently Google snaffled up smart-watch makers WIMM a little while back. I'm ignorantly assuming that some of the work done on Google Glass is transferable to a smart-watch, and vice versa ( similar constraints, such as power efficiency, battery placement, unorthodox UIs, as examples).
The watch lasting a week should only be an issue if people sleep with their watches on. But I hear nothing about Qi charging, which (or a similar wireless charging standard) should be standard on a smartwatch so you can just throw the watch on it at night and pick it up in the morning (or after the shower) topped off.
The Qualcomm Toq looks like a better design as it lasts 3 days between wireless charges, has a "Mirasol" colour e-Ink display that is visible in bright sunlight, and works with any Android 4.03 or above phone.
http://blog.gsmarena.com/qualcomm-announces-new-toq-smartwatch-for-android-smartphones/
The Toq sounds interesting. The biggest interest for me in this case is the Mirasol display, as it would be the first color quick-refresh nonvolatile display to market. Been waiting on one for years, and if successful could mean some good business for Qualcomm in future phones and tablets.
25-hour battery life is not that great an improvement, TBH. My first (and only, I've seen the light) digital watch had a battery that lasted for four years. Even my hand-winding gold-plated 19th-century pocket watch lasts longer than that.
I'm sure there will be security worries about this, too. I was visiting a site yesterday with prominent "No Photography" signs up everywhere, and whenever someone whipped out a smartphone they were immediately told not to take a photo with it. But why not just leave your watch recording for a few minutes as you wander around? Who's really going to notice? And of course it can only be a matter of time before someone sits opposite the girl in the short skirt on a bus with one of these...
In a Iain M. Banks story, the Culture visit Earth and remark incredulously upon a No Photography notice in a museum:
"They want to own the light?"
William Gibson is a bit more inclined towards prosthetic-eyeballs, so that glamour films can be captured from the starlet's point of view. If prosthetic eyeballs are ever introduced for medical reasons, there will likely be some call for DRM so that images transmitted to the brain can't be backed up for future replay.
Arthur C Clarke employed wormholes to explore the issues of a zero-privacy world.
If you want to covertly record something, you won't be waving your phone about.
A phone in the shirt pocket can get a reasonable picture through cloth (stripy shirts aren't so good).
And if you go on to the surveillance sites, you will find currently available devices that pose as pens, buttons, ties and even watches.
Cheers Wize, your suggestion of a cheap camera pen from Alibaba seems much less hassle than having my eyeballs swapped out for some Nikons, and far safer than plumbing up some wormholes.
Alas, your handy tips won't be of much us to me, cos I never had those blackmail and voyeurism neuro-cartridges implanted in my brain (back when they were on a buy-one-get-one-free special offer)
Dunno what you are on about. I was talking about the likes of the 'No photography' sign in the post before yours. Nothing to do with your prosthetic eyeball nonsense.
And covert cameras is not all about blackmail. There is a bit of voyeurism too.
Ok, other, more practical uses are recording incidents of abuse (your boss, your crazy neighbour etc) as well as industrial espionage.
Putting aesthetics aside, and ignoring the geek in me: Why should I want one of these?
Their CEO was quoted as saying Samsung Gear will become a fashion icon, everyone will be wearing them.
Why?
I don' t need a pedometer. I don't need a heart monitor. I don't need an address book on my wrist, not a camera nor a dictafone. I sometimes make a point of *not* carrying my phone to some places - why would I want to leave my watch behind as well? (not that it's any use beyond 10 meters in this case anyway).
I love gadgets, even just for the sake of themselves, but when you try to sell it as a lifestyle object, all I can smell is snake oil.
I'll take a smart watch that can offer me something smart, but this is just an ugly user interface to something that's already mobile and pocket sized. Though I guess that can be disputed re. Galaxy Note.
>I don't need a heart monitor.
You probably don't, at least not now and for many more years to come I hope! However, some people would benefit from one- and their GP might appreciate a week's data log when a patient presents with some chest symptoms. Many people, usually the more elderly, have emergency call pendants. 'Wearable tech' is already here for some limited cases, and may move in towards the mainstream.
Some people wear what looks like a piece if jewellery but marked with information, to alert medics to drug allergies and the like. Obviously a pendant or bracelet is less obtrusive than a current-generation smart-watch, but electronic kit tends to get smaller over time.
I agree about the camera - it adds bulk and can make people feel awkward. However, I suspect Samsung's intended market for this Mark I product are those that want every conceivable feature whether they need it or not (ie Galaxy S4 owners... friendly joke : ))
Fair points, and I actually find the idea of pendants quite interesting (perhaps concealment appeals), but it doesn't say why me. I have money, I want cool stuff; they've messed up what was a really good opportunity - seemingly because they're impatient and would rather be first to market than first to get it right.
That sounds awful familiar to me. Not an iFan, but I seem to recall smartphones were around before the iPhone too.
Anyway. Maybe I'll come back when someone comes up with a u-shadow.
Quote from Mashable: "Jeff Orr, a mobile industry analyst with ABI Research, estimates that there will be 1.2 million smart watch shipments worldwide this year, 7 million in 2014 and 140 million in 2018. That growth, he says, is based on the assumption that three or more big players enter the space and drive consumers to adopt the device."
They won't drive me. This piece of junk has flop written all over it.
this needs to be done the other way round. put the network interface in the watch and the bare minimum needed to support it - drop the camera, music/video player and all that from the watch.
The phone/tablet then becomes a big screen / large battery / large compute power supporting device which has all the bells and whistles.
that way you can leave your (getting too big for your pocket these days) smartphone behind and still have a basic texting/calling device always with you, on your wrist. When you need the big screen and computing power, pickup the smartphone/tablet sized device that is linked to it.
Firstly, I own a Galaxy Note 2. If anyone else has used this phone, you'd know about its bulk. It's a pain in the arse getting in and out your pocket, just to check the time or read a message etc. But I still love it.
I would actually find this watch useful. Plus I think it looks awesome.
I'd find it much easier reading and sending the odd text using a smartwatch bluetoothed to my phone, and checking the time obviously. In fact, I'd say I'd find it about 1000x more useful than my actual watch, which I might add, cost £300! About the same price as a mechanical watch then and does a shit load more.
I'd rather buy one of these than a £1000 "I'm a pretentious douchebag" Rolex.
There has been a trend in recent years for ordinary, analogue, watches and chronometer watches to get bigger and bigger for no good reason.
I used to look in the jewellers window and think 'I'd look cool wearing one of them'. Now I glance in and think 'Only a complete tosser would buy that'.
I wonder why that thought sprung to mind/
First let me say that, I believe that Samsung have made multiple market assessments and considerations before releasing the Galaxy Gear. Samsung continue to spend massive amounts of money on their global advertising campaigns and their Galaxy Android phones are fantastic.
Samsung made a great presentation introducing the next piece of wearable tech.and they made all the usual noises like: "Designed it from the ground up", "Everyone will want one soon" and "Beautiful piece of Gear" etc etc.
But there are some contrarian thoughts about the Galaxy Gear to balance out the euphoria.
See the blog entry at http://galaxygearcontrarian.blogspot.ch/
Points include:
1) Battery life and cables.
2) Size does matter.
3) What came first.... the wrist or the pocket?
4) Dieters are too lazy to write everything down?
5) Don't tie me to a second device.
THE KILLER: Blackberry's Playbook died an ugly death, especially because it needed the Blackberry smartphone in order to be connected and useful. Samsung, take note (pun).
I still don't get the point of this at all. If I want to answer my phone, text my friends, read my email, listen to music, watch a video, etc, I can do it on the phone that I already have! If I have this huge Casio-esque lump on my wrist, I still have to stop whatever I am doing to use it. Why don't I just pull out and use the phone I already own?
My Omega Speedmaster Pro isn't waterproof and its not been an issue for the past 15 or so years...nor the fact that it needs "charging" every day, plastic face which is a scratch magnet......
easy to read in the day, but tricky a few hours after dark... And the cost? Today about 5 times more than the galaxy gear!
makes the smart watch with its pedometer, heart rate monitor, Bluetooth and media players seem feature rich and good value!
I have very acidic sweat. As such, I tend to eat through plated-copper or flexible-plastic items. Which is why my watch is 100% stainless steel including wristband and my glass frames are made of titanium. More expensive, but in the plus-side, they last a lot longer.
The wristband of this watch is made of flexible plastic and contains both a camera and a speaker. As far as I am concerned, this is an item I will render brittle and thus break in roughly 8 months.
As it stands, this watch is a no-go for me, regardless of any other pros/cons.
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