14 DAY TRIAL // Back in February, Samsung introduced its second wave of wearables, including the Gear 2, Gear 2 Neo smartwatches and Gear Fit health-centric band. And on April 11, the Korean tech giant has globally launched the triad on the international market.
So far, so good, the devices seem to be getting a lot of attention from the press as well as from customers. But one of the major disadvantages of Samsung’s new wearables is that the tech giant is currently offering compatibility only with its own range of smartphones and tablets.
Nevertheless, in a recent interview with Reuters, Samsung Senior VP of product strategy, Hankil Yoon, talked about the company’s future plans in terms of wearables.
According to him, Samsung is looking to open up compatibility to include any other Android device out there, which certainly makes sense if the company wants its wearables to go main-stream.
Samsung smartphones and tablets have created a niche of their own, so the company shouldn't be needing to woo customers to buy its mobile products only so they could tap into the Gear goodness.
Sure, workarounds for granting compatibility to non-Samsung devices have been found. In recent days, we showed you a method that allows you to connect the Gear Fit to the Android 4.4.2 KitKat updated HTC One M8 or M7 smartphones. Another workaround has been discovered that works for the Nexus 5 smartphone.
But these methods come with limitations and not all features will turn out to be functional. Moreover, not having an officially supported smartphone translates into not getting any of the official updates from Samsung, a fact that will certainly lessen the overall experience.
But according to the Samsung official, in the near future we could see all Android devices become compatible with the Gear 2, Gear 2 Neo and Gear Fit.
We certainly hope, Samsung manages to achieve this feat until the first Android Wear smartwatches will be rolled out into the wild, because surely these products will play nice with the entire Android ecosystem from the get-go.
Anyway, the company official is quite sketchy about details, so maybe the company won’t be updating the current line-up which will remain Samsung-only territory, after all.
According to the same Yoon, the Korean giant will be bringing an Android Wear smartwatch to the market before the end of the year. He doesn't provide a time-line for the event, but the launch will probably happen after the gorgeous Moto 360 will make an appearance in the wild.