This year Samsung didn't unveil a new smartwatch alongside their flagship Galaxy S6 and there's a very good reason for that. The company has been actively teasing a new smartwatch last month when they announced that a brand new Samsung Gear SDK will be made available soon. Well, today the SDK is out to developers and the package from Samsung does indeed reveal quite a bit about their next wearable.

According to the purported documents which reference Samsung's round smartwatch as "The Next Gear", the device will apparently feature a 360 x 360 resolution display similar to that of the Moto 360. In addition to the round form factor which is a first for Samsung, the device will feature the essential sensors like GPS and a HR sensor and most intriguingly is the inclusion of a 2G wireless connection.

This isn't the first time Samsung threw in a wireless connection on a device that fits on your hand, the gigantic Gear S had a SIM card slot.

Moving on to the most intriguing part of the SDK and that is the ability to rotate the bezel of the screen to either scroll through lists or zoom into images. These are just some of the examples which Samsung has implemented with this new hardware and it's all up to the developers to think of what can they do with that rotating ring.


This is quite an ingenious way to interact with the screen and at least Samsung didn't blindly copy the Apple Watch's digital crown which supposedly does the same thing as Samsung's solution but with is a little bit more left-hander friendly. Rotating bezels on watches aren't something new, they've been on watches for quite some time now.


As a whole, the SDK which Samsung released today is just scratching the surface of things and we're definitely going to see a round smartwatch from Samsung later this year. The alleged Galaxy A (codenamed Samsung Orbis) is expected to launch alongside the Galaxy Note 5 during IFA 2015 and it'll most likely be battling it off with Apple's next generation Apple Watch when if goes on sale during the holiday season.

One thing to note is that this round smartwatch isn't running on Android Wear, it's being powered by Samsung's own Tizen OS. Check out the sample screenshots of the round UI.






SOURCE: SAMMOBILE