The creation of a smartwatch has nowadays become a pet project for a great many of manufacturers. The fuss around such devices has become so overwhelming that it could have created an impression as if these are really needed and up-to-date. At every turn the news tell about the Pebble, the Qualcomm Toq, the Google WIMM and, most oftenly, in the recent time, about the Samsung Galaxy Gear. And let us not to forget about the Sony Smartwatch 1 and 2, the Motorola MOTOACTV and, of course, some developments of the Apple iWatch. For now, the Galaxy Gear is the most “real” embodiment of the smartwatch.
The Galaxy Gear watch is named similarly to the company smartphones – SM-V700. Moreover, for the present moment it is the most unusual device! But don’t make hasty conclusions – “unusual” doesn’t mean the best. The Galaxy Gear is almost a smartphone with everything that it implies. And what is it that is implied? Well, let’s have a close look to what we are offered.
Design
The electronics to be put in to the device is the biggest challenge, as, eventually, the device is to be “put on”. In that case one has to care not about the pockets, like in the case of smartphones, not about bags and briefcases, like in the case of notebooks or tablet PC’s, and not about table surface and its “surroundings” like in the case of a desktop PC. The first issue to be taken into consideration in this case is a human body, which is all soft, “curved and bent”, always moving and staying in different weather conditions.
Dealing with a Smartwatch one is to solve quite an unusual problem. The screen is the major challenge in this case. Regularly, a larger screen size is the first indicator of convenience, in this case, however, a big screen do not promise so much convenience, as the device is to be put on an arm. So manufacturers have to find compromises – maximum possible screen size, maximum convenience at wearing, appropriate design.
Did Samsung manufacturers manage to solve the task? At least to some extent. It was rumored about the plans of installing the 3-inch screen, which evidently would have had to be bent. Still the first generation of the smartwatch is equipped with a 1.63-inch square-shape screen. Dealing with a smartphone such size is would have been a trifle while for a smartwatch it is really huge. The screen is covered with glass, yet it is not sapphire glass (which one would like to get!), around the glass there is a metal frame. The frame has as if deliberately sticking out four slotted head bolts.
In general the Galaxy Gear seems quite huge, still it is not heavy – the weight is 73.8 grams. The body width is quite big as well – 11.1 mm. The width, together with quite prominent height (56.6 mm), makes it difficult to hide the device under a shirt’s sleeve. The device stretches the sleeve and always sticks out from underneath. It is much easier to put the device on over the sleeve, yet it is not the prettiest way of wearing a watch. Of course more casual cloths style would not create such problems, but, anyway, the huge, unusual-shape watch is going to attract attention.
Ergonomics
The Galaxy Gear body is made from the soft-touch plastic. One feels at once that the device is made from strong, high-quality, nice-to-touch material. On the right there are a microphone and a switch button.
On the left there is one more microphone. Apparently, in order to make your interlocutor hear you the more the better.
The back side of the device body has an informing sticker with a serial number and the device model name, SM-V700. The battery connectors, through which, as well, the data are transmitted to and from a computer, are also placed there. There are also four hex cap bolts there that are hiding the watch internals.
The band is not such attractive as the watch itself. It is made from rubber, and it is really noticeable not just after touching it, but just by looking at it. The ribs, lengthwise the band, strengthen the “rubber effect”.
As for the clasp, it needs badly some improvements to be made to it! It is from metal and allows changing the length of the band in accordance with the wrist size. Still the clasp is not safe enough. Generally, when wearing it in “regular circumstances”, it doesn’t open, yet it’s enough to strengthen the muscles and bend the arm and the band unclasps.
The high-tech maximum is represented by a built-in speaker and a camera. The camera gets its description further, and as for the speaker it is hidden in that very band, that is why the latter is so thick and even heavy. And yes, it really produces sound! Still it is not really loud; outside, on a noisy street, one barely hears it. It is worth mentioning that in this case the speaker is located exactly on the wrist, such a location exposes the speaker to the risk of damaging. The cuts for the sound are placed inconveniently; for instance, water may get there easily while you are washing the hands, and one will have to be alert all the time in order to avoid it.
The external part of the band has a camera lens. It sticks out a lot on the band surface in the shape of a rubber hill. Still very few would expect such camera location, so, the Galaxy Gear fits quite well for secret filming. It is worth mentioning as well, that the camera is another “weak spot” – the “spot” that is better to protect from hitting, no matter, by chance or on purpose. In general, the Galaxy Gear band is quite of a high-tech device, an inseparable part of the gadget itself. Perhaps, it is its major disadvantage among all the merits (like the speaker and the camera) – to change the band for another one is not easy at all. Of course, service centers may help with the exchange for a modest price of $150. Yes, the Galaxy is really changing our understanding of the world!
Let’s grumble a little bit more about charging and computer connection. Samsung manufacturers decided not to overload the device body, which is already far from being tiny, with a microUSB connector. All of these are placed on a separate plastic “clipping case”.
The inner part of the case has the picture illustrating how it should be put on. Five contacts there are used for connection ofthe microUSB, the battery and the watch internals.
The connector itself is located on the left bottom part of the case. The left side has a small lever meant to open the cover.
Yes, by the way! The case has an NFC-tag with the link to the Samsung Galaxy Gear Manager program. It is enough to bring the cover to a smartphone, and its screen immediately shows invitation to open Samsung Apps Store page, from which it is possible to download an application.
Using Galaxy Gear Smartwatch
The first, really logical question that arises is how to watch the time? The device has an AMOLED screen, which doesn’t allow seeing anything on it, until it illuminates itself. So, really, how? Well, it is not by pushing the switch on button each and every time?
No, it is not like that – it is enough to raise the arm in the same way you usually do, when checking the time. The Galaxy Gear is equipped with a built-in accelerometer and a motion sensor. So, the device knows your location, what you are doing, through the camera the device films where you stand and then transmits it all to the Big Brother. That was a joke, about everything besides accelerometer and the motion sensor, of course, as it is exactly thanks to them that the watch detects the “switch-on the time” gesture. It is worth mentioning that it is not 100% times that the gesture is recognized. The maximum is 85-90%. So, you really need to move the arm with the characteristic gesture. If your arm is just in a convenient position to watch the time, you will not be able see anything just by looking at the watch face, how would the watch know that you are looking at it? Some insignificant movement won’t change the situation as well. So, using the Galaxy Gear it is much more difficult to get to know the time and not being noticed than to perform a secret filming.
Well, let’s assume that we already activated the watch, what’s then? Now, swiping to right and left one can scroll the menu. The menu has 12 main options: the Home Screen with a watch face on it, Contacts, Logs, Notifications, Voice Memo, S Voice, Gallery, Media Controller, Pedometer, Settings, Weather and Apps.
It is necessary to remember that in order to get back to the previous screen one has to swipe from the top down. Generally this movement may be considered as a smartphone “Back” button of a smartphone. However to call the camera from the Home screen one uses the same gesture is used.
There are more gestures. Double tapping with finger of the screen will show the connection type and the battery charge level. By holding two fingers on the device screen one opens the list of the recent opened applications, which is available for all the Android versions from 4.0 and higher.
Now, let’s have a look at the details. Let’s start with calls – it is really possible to use the Galaxy Gear for calling. One has to talk “into the body” and listen to the band. As we have already mentioned, the speaker is not loud enough when listening to it on a noisy street. Generally, the device operates in the same way as the Bluetooth headset. It is also possible to see the lists of incoming, outgoing and missed calls, for that case one uses Samsung regular gestures –left to right for calling, and right to left for a message.
To dial a number one may use both: a dial pad or the S Voice. In the first case, one is going to see on the screen the dial pad, reminding of a calculator. Dialing is not an easy matter, one needs to aim all the time, which becomes especially difficult when moving. On the other hand, one it is possible call the dial pad from the Home screen by swiping from the top down.
As for the S Voice option, the situation here seems quite understandable: you are speaking “into the watch”, the watch is trying to recognize what you say, then it sends everything to the smartphone, and the smartphone, in its turn, to the Internet, in the end, the respond on what you were requesting comes, or the number you were saying is starting to dial-up. It is worth mentioning that the S Voice option is far from being the fastest, it takes up to several seconds until it responds. And again, on a noisy street the odds of recognition decrease dramatically, what is more, screaming a phone number into the watch somewhere in public would seem at least strange. So, the easiest way is to dial a number by oneself using the phone and nothing else, as the buttons there a much bigger.
The situation with notifications arouses questions as well. There are no problems with SMS reading. It is possible to install ChatOn, Facebook, Twitter and some other applications. Yet such regular Google services as Gmail, Hangouts, Google+ and others are not supported. The only really useful function of the watch may be informing you that you’ve got a message, and then you should read everything using a smartphone.
As for the camera, the manufacturer suggests a 1.9 MP sensor, which gives 1392x1392 and 640x480 resolution pictures; the maximum resolution pictures have the square shape. To take a picture one has to press the screen with a finger when the device operates in the camera mode. To watch the pictures one may scroll the gallery, and it is from the gallery that it is possible to send the pictures to the connected smartphone. There is no other way of transmitting the filmed data to another device, even the filmed ones. As for the pictures’ quality, here there are several examples:
Actually, pictures have quite good quality. Of course the lightning is not the least important factor affecting the eventual result, but generally, it is quite easy to get good quality clear pictures in the daylight. Moreover, there are no problems with the white balance. Frankly speaking, we expected that the result would be worse.
Filming is available with 1280x720 and 640x640 resolutions, maximal duration is 10 seconds. As for the quality, for that case it is worse – the picture is far from being clear.
What else can the watch do? Perhaps, one of the functions that are really useful is the control of music playback on the smartphone. It is possible to pause, to go back to the previous track, and to skip to the next one. Anyway, you will not spend so much money just on a convenient control unit for the phone. And what is it that you will spend on?
For instance, it is a pedometer. Really, it would be strange if the smartwatch didn’t have such a modern option. Before the launch it is necessary to make some confessions about whether you are a male or a female, your weight and height (without heels!). The watch will count how much you have been walking and may send this information to S Health (Samsung brand application). Moreover, the amount of steps made is possible to display on the screen, together with the watch.
A weather forecast totally depends on Accuweather and its settings on the connected smartphone. One should make sure that location settings are right; otherwise you’ll know nothing about the “God plans”.
The settings don’t offer many options, on the other hand, what one can expect from a smartwatch? For example, the watch face view, the sound volume, incoming call melody and so on.
The most interesting part of the settings is the color range. It is not by chance that Samsung manufacturers are using plain dark icons, performed with just white color on the dark background. The AMOLED screen consumes the energy just in the part where the color is different from black. So, this is a way to spare the energy. That’s why it would be sound not to switch to another color range. Well, any other color range will be just as simple as that one – in the majority of cases you will not see more than three colors on the screen at the same time.
May be, the most important options is USB setting in the Details. It permits to get at least some control of the computer watch and install some “unplanned” applications, and even take screenshots.
In general the watch has very few standard applications.
The process of searching of the smartphone by the device seemed interesting as well – after switching the device starts producing a very loud sound. By the way, the watch has a stopwatch with a timer. Talking about unusual functions, besides the regular ones, like notifications and changing of the watch face view on the Home screen, we would like to mention the Evernote application. Of course the application possibilities on that very device are extremely modest. The only possible way of making a note is with one’s voice, which is not really useful, may be just to note down which purchases from the list were made.
The only thing to add to the above said is that the Galaxy Gear is really far from the fastest gadget. The maximal autonomous operation without recharging is just two days, provided that you are just once in a while checking the time. If you are using it to “the full extent” it would be great if the charge is enough for one day.
How to Install Applications on Galaxy Gear
There are two ways to install new applications on the Galaxy Gear: from a smartphone or from a computer. After connection of the smartwatch to a smartphone and installation of the Galaxy Gear application Gear Manager (for more details see the following paragraph) the Samsung Apps store shows the list of programs for the smartwatch.
For now the list is not at all long, and all the programs are free. There is some eBay client, a speedometer, the already mentioned Evernote, a couple of simple games and an enormous number of different kinds of watch faces. In general, as it should be expected for a new type of devices, the choice is very modest.
However, the Galaxy Gear is not just a watch. It is a smartphone put on the arm! Have a look at its characteristics in the table above. The device is equipped with a good dual core (!) processor Samsung Exynos 4212, with the frequency of 800 MHz. Well, one of the cores it turned off to save the energy. Let’s not forget about the GPU as well, for this gadget it is Mali-400MP; a similar GPU is installed in the Galaxy S III!
The watch RAM is 512 MB, flash-memory – 4 GB. The screen resolution is 320x320, together with the 1.63” diagonal it gives 277 ppi pixel density. That is quite a good result. Last but not least, the Galaxy Gear has Android 4.2.2 with its own shell installed. After all, is it really surprising, that after comparing to the Android SDK, installed on a computer, the Galaxy Gear is perceived as a common smartphone. After the watch USB setting start, the device may be used as a usual Googlephone, for instance, to have a look at the memory, or to install almost any application. To make changes one uses the ADB tool, which is a part of the Android SDK. To install an app one uses the following command:
ADB install [file_name]
or
ADB –d install [file_name]
There is one more way. The first one may not be effective if together with the SDK the emulator starts. The “-d” shows that a real device is being used. As for the name, here one should use the name of the APK-file. By the way, dreams about the Google play would be in vain, all the manipulations are to be performed manually, using the APK search. For now this task is not so hard anymore.
We were not checking the Galaxy Gear compatibility with all the endless amount of the Google Play applications. It was enough to make sure that it is not just information tools, like the CPU-Z, that operate on the device.
The watch is available for benchmarks (and the results are really good!), games operate quite well, even 3D ones; it is possible to install a launcher and turn the watch into a common smartphone! Of course, the screen is too small for icons and controls, but anyway, their launch is possible. It is out of the question that not all of the programs will have the full functionality; the only watch connection “with the outer world” is through a smartphone with Bluetooth.
So, here is “the toy” we eventually get. When you played enough a desire to delete everything installed may appear. To delete the apps one uses the same SDK, it is just the amount of commands that is different.
adb –d shell
pm list packages
pm uninstall [package_name]
The first command gives the access to the watch itself (or to the smartphone). The second one will show the list of the applications installed. In the list you got you will have to find the application you want to delete. The third command deletes the application. The watch comes back to its initial state.
The Galaxy Gear compatibility with Smatphones
The most interesting situation happened to be with the Galaxy Gear compatibility with other devices, to be more precise, with smartphones. At the time device appeared on the market the only smartphone compatible with it was the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, which appears to be the most expensive model. Later, in the middle of October, the Android 4.3 firmware for the Galaxy S4 with the smartwatch support, appeared. Anyhow, just two, even if popular, but rather expensive smartphone models, are not enough for a widespread gadget like smartwatch, if it is meant to be widespread.
Of course that is not all. It is expected that the Android 4.3 will become available for the Galaxy Note II and the Galaxy S III, and then for the Galaxy S4 mini, the Galaxy S4 Active, the Galaxy Mega 5.8, the Galaxy Mega 6.3 and the Galaxy S4 Zoom. Probably the OS version will be installed for the new Samsung devices as well, but as for the old ones, the only two mentioned above will be compatible with the Galaxy Gear. So, the story here is sad. Anyway, let’s consider the possibilities offered by smartphones to control the watch.
One should switch on the Bluetooth detection on the watch and on the smartphone and the devices detect each other very fast. The only thing left to do then is to install the Gear Manager from the Samsung Apps. As we have already said, another possible way of getting the application is with the use of the “clipping case”, which has the NFC-tag.
The main menu of the controlling tool permits to work with several watches at the same time - a very useful function for those with refined taste that would put on two watches on both arms. The Gear Manager also permits to perform the settings of the Home screen, and of the parameters of some watch faces.
It is possible to choose the parameters for Contacts, Gallery, Voice Memo.
It is even possible to choose the action for the switch button. There are also general settings of the Galaxy Gear operation: reaction to lifting up the arm, auto lock, receiving of notifications.
Yes, by the way, it is also possible to detect the watch from the smartphone.
Conclusion
It is out of the question that the Samsung Galaxy Gear is a very interesting and unusual device. By September 2013 a great many models of the smartwatch appeared on the market, like the Pebble, the Sony smartwatch 1 and 2, the Motorola MOTOACTV. But it is the Galaxy Gear that became most popular. For the present moment, the Samsung product is the “strongest device”, it is a smartphone, that the manufacturers managed to “squeeze into” a small body. It is exactly that quality all its advantages and disadvantages originate from.
What kind of advantages? In the first place it is productivity. The watch interface has no delays. And that is not surprising – the Galaxy Gear screen is good enough even for three-dimension games! It is also possible to install almost any application on the watch; of course one has to use just Android SDK for that, but anyway. The device has a good camera; it can make any kind of calls, and, in general, is well-synchronized with the smartphone. Apparently, there was a decision to install the Android 4.2 almost without changes; such a choice permitted the manufactures to present the device on the market so soon. The fact that the device has been developed in a hurry is evident.
However, the hurry didn’t influence the quality of assembly and the design that are unarguably good. Of course, the rubber band a bit spoils the general impression. And placing of the speaker on the band wasn’t the best idea, as the water can easily get into it. The watch itself is quite huge and noticeable. And it is not each and everyone that is fond of the watch with a big screen sticking out from underneath the shirt sleeve. Ergonomics arouses questions as well. Lifting up the arm is not always recognized by the device; and a delay when watching the time is at least confusing – it is exactly what we have the watch on the arm for –checking the time at once.
Of course, the watch has many other functions, but do you really need those? It is difficult to find some natural way of using this device. The only we managed to find is the playback control. All the other functions seem made-up: answering the phone when the hands are busy, noting of the purchases at shop, immediate reading of SMS in a means of transport and so on. Of course, there is also a secret filming function, but it may be perceived as unethical, mightn’t it?
Price
The official manufacturer price for the Samsung Galaxy Gear is $300. The price is not the lowest one at all. It is the price of a good smartphone or an excellent Tablet PC, or even of a notebook from a low-cost range. Given the above mentioned the device is left just for real geeks and high-technologies’ fans. The device is not at all a mass product. It is enough to compare the Galaxy Gear price with the price of its competitors.
Sony Smartwatch 2
The Sony Smartwatch 2 doesn’t have such popularity and has been available on the market for quite a long time already. The device is compatible with many smartphone models. Of course it doesn’t have a camera, and the functionality is not that great, yet the price is much lower – about $200. Together with good wireless productivity the model becomes really attractive.
Pebble
The Pebble device is a bit more expensive - $250. The functionality is much more modest for that case. However, the autonomous operation time is long. Unfortunately the only two compatible devices are iPad and iPhone. Anyway, it is an alternative.
Motorola MOTOACTV
The Motorola MOTOACTV is the closest likeness to the Galaxy Gear. It is an Android-based device with 8 or 16 GB of memory. Still, it should be taken into consideration that it is not exactly the Smartwatch in the way Samsung sees it. Motorola developed its product for sportsmen. The price of that device is lower, about $200 – 250, depending on the built-in memory capacity.
We would be like to get to know your opinion about the Galaxy Gear. Would you buy such a smartwatch for yourself? And, first of all, for what purposes would you use them? You are most welcome to tell your opinions and experience in the commentaries.
Advantages:
- good design;
- high-quality assembly;
- a good quality AMOLED-screen;
- high productivity;
- possibility to install applications (including the use of the SDK);
- broad functionality;
- the body has no microUSB connector, which makes it smaller;
- a good quality built-in camera.
Disadvantages:
- very few ways of using;
- impossible to check the time without the screen activation;
- high price;
- short time of the autonomous operation;
- few devices compatible with the watch;
- inconvenient location of the speaker;
- Google services are not supported;
- exchange of the band is expensive;
- big size of the watch;
- slow operation of S Voice.
One may leave or read the opinions about the Samsung Galaxy Gear in the commentaries below or on our forum.
