Samsung takes the biggest leap into wearable gadgets this September. Indeed every technogeek has been waiting for it. The industry has already taken a shift towards wearable technologies with the announcements made by Samsung’s major competitor – Apple Inc.
Google Glass is the first commercially available wearable gadget that was released by the market leader, a few months back. Though it enjoyed a spectacular release with a lot of hype, the product did not catch up with expectations. Perhaps expectations were just too high. Google Glass has been labelled premature by evaluators and the public who were lucky enough to use it. This was primarily because limited “real-life” testing was carried out on the device. The gadget failed to perform in multiple scenarios and users found it embarrassing having to chant the command “Glass” each time they wanted to access a piece of information.
The concerns mentioned above drew a route map for Samsung’s journey towards wearable devices. Although Samsung team had less promotions compared to Google, they have worked hard to understand the requirements and mindsets of users.
The product release happened in a place that resembled a mix of a cathedral and a circus tent, in Berlin, Germany.
Samsung has tried to focus on the usability aspect rather than putting in extra effort to make it ornamental. The device has been named as “Samsung Gear”. It comes in the form of a wrist watch with a cute 320 x 320 1.64 inch Super AMOLED display. This screen is mounted on a wrist strap, making it a portable/wearable Galaxy smartphone.
All similar devices in the market concentrate on three main aspects:
· Portability
· Size
· Battery backup
Samsung has put in sincere efforts to come up with the best possible solutions by optimizing the battery and the processor, ensuring a seamless usability experience to its users. However, Samsung Gear is yet to travel many miles before it can ensure complete satisfaction to overambitious users. Sources say that Samsung has been investing a lot on research and development around this domain and has a clear vision for all future releases and activities. This is a silent assurance for all who expect wonderful new products from the company. In the long run we can expect the term “Mobile” to be replaced by “Wearable” as more and more devices transform themselves into wearable gadgets.
Samsung is now going through a “market study” phase. The release of these devices initially would evaluate the level of acceptance from users. The Samsung team will be able to customize them for the next release, based on reviews and feedback they gather. The same strategy was adopted even during the release of Galaxy series smartphones.
Smart watches and wearables leave a good margin of hope as they introduce functionalities that involve health and vital statistics measurement sensors. Such features in future wearables will offer a much healthier and happier life. This future is not far away.
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