Samsung officially entered the smartwatch race earlier this year when executive vice president of mobile Lee Young Hee spilled the beans during an otherwise casual interview. We now have some solid evidence to go on thanks to a July 29 patent filing for a product that Samsung is calling the Galaxy Gear.
According to the filing, the Galaxy Gear name refers to wearable digital electronic devices in the form of a wristwatch, wrist band or bangle capable of providing access to the Internet, sending and receiving phone calls, e-mails and messages.
Other design patents from Korea indicate a watch with a large flexible display and Android-style controls. It’s worth mentioning that there aren’t any direct ties between the Galaxy Gear filing and the Korean patents but the two certainly sound like the same product – or at the very least, they sound like they could be in the same product line.
The idea of a flexible display for a smartwatch certainly makes sense. Thus far, the only smartwatch that could be considered a true success is the Pebble which uses a black and white e-paper display. The idea of flexible displays has been tossed around for use in smartphones but when you consider the current design of most handsets, that doesn’t really seem too practical.
It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out with big names like Apple, Microsoft, Samsung and Sony all hard at work on their take of what a smartwatch should be.
https://www.techspot.com/news/53513-samsung-trademark-filing-reveals-galaxy-gear-smartwatch.html
