Samsung's Android Wear Powered Smartwatch Is Coming "later This Year"

Samsung’s Android Wear powered smartwatch is coming “later this year”

BY Rajesh Pandey

Rajesh Pandey

Rajesh is a 26-year old freelance writer from Kolkata, India. He loves to tinker around with his Android devices and flash custom ROMs on them....

All Articles by Rajesh Pandey

Published 16 Apr 2014

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Back at MWC, Samsung launched not one, but two Tizen powered smartwatches — the Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo. A month later, Google unveiled Android Wear, its own OS meant for smartwatches and other wearables. While LG and Motorola also unveiled their own Android wear powered smartwatch on the same day, Samsung was surprisingly missing, suggesting that the company might stick to Tizen for its wearables.

Now, in an email to The Verge, Samsung has confirmed that it plans on releasing a smartwatch running Android Wear “later this year”. On the other hand, LG and Motorola are expected to unveil their Android Wear powered smartwatches — the G Watch and 360, respectively — sometime within the next three months.

The original Galaxy Gear from Samsung was based on Android but met with lukewarm response. The company, then, switched to its own in-house OS — Tizen — for the Gear 2 and Gear 2 neo but initial reviews of the devices have been disappointing as well. It will be interesting to see whether the use of Android Wear will allow Samsung to repeat its smartphone success in the wearables market or not.