Samsung’s Gear S2 smartwatch will work with other Android smartphones

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Published 3 Sep 2015

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Gear S2 lifestyle

Not too long ago, Samsung unveiled its Gear S2 and Gear S2 classic smartwatches, which are not running Android Wear, but instead Samsung’s proprietary Tizen OS.

That last bit wasn’t all that surprising, considering Samsung has opted to use Tizen in the last wave of wearables, too. However, this time there’s a big change incoming: platform support. That’s right, instead of being locked into Samsung’s ecosystem, the Gear S2 and Gear S2 classic will be able to connect and function with other non-Samsung devices.

There are some caveats. First, Samsung has confirmed that while its Tizen-based smartwatch will support other Android devices, the experience might be a bit wonky, with some hangups and hiccups along the way. On top of that, due to differing APIs, some features might not work at all. Namely, the dialer was included in Android Central‘s report, but that will likely extend to other features, too.

You’ll need an Android 4.4 device or later, and your phone will need to be running with 1.5GB of RAM or more. There will also be a companion app released, but whether or not that will be accessible through the Play Store remains unknown at this time.

Now that you don’t have to use a Samsung phone, will you consider picking up Samsung’s Gear S2?

[via Android Central]