Motorola fans and those looking out for a good smartwatch will indeed be pretty happy to know that the Moto 360 is back in stock. The smartwatch that is sold officially through online retailer Flipkart had first shown up online during the festival season after which it immediately went out of stock.

The smartwatch is indeed one of the best looking, Android Wear powered smartwatches available today. Although it does fall on the chunkier side, it sports a modern design and a large display for all those notifications. Moreover, its even water-proof and sports a 320 mAh battery and also comes with the wireless charging dock (provided in the package) that turns that big display into a bedside clock.

While there are just two options available out here in India, buyers will indeed have to make do, unless of course you are one of those waiting for the gold version to arrive. We suggest that you pick up one before the smartwatch runs out of stock once again. The next best thing is obviously LG’s completely round G Watch R which is yet to be announced in India.

TAGS: wearable, smartwatch, Android Wear, Motorola, Motorola Moto 360

HP has finally launched its first smartwatch and it does look impressive. The smartwatch is called the MB Chronowing Smartwatch and while it does look like a regular smartwatch on the outside, it packs in some run-of-the-mill smartwatch features inside.

Clearly, HP along with designer, Michael Bastian managed to churn out a smartwatch that well...  does not look like one. The smartwatch that was announced earlier, looks like a regular wristwatch, but upon looking closer you will notice the display with one space reserved just for the analogue hands while the rest of it displays contextual information streamed from your smartphone.

Yes, the smartwatch has a couple of misses. It's not a touchscreen device to begin with, since it uses those three buttons to deal with the limited feature set, and your smartphone to handle the rest. While it does alert your of incoming , notifications from emails, texts and missed calls by delivering gentle vibrations to your wrist, it also keeps up with scores from your favourite teams and event from your calendar. What is missing are all those fitness tracking sensors and all those apps that come with Google’s Android Wear ecosystem.

But the MB Chronowing Smartwatch does deliver pretty well on one front and that is the battery life. The company claims that smartwatch with regular usage will last for up to a week on a single charge. We guess this is thanks to the display tech (which is pretty pixelated if you ask us).

The smartwatch will be available in three strap options (brown leather, olive nylon or black rubber) and will go on sale on Gilt starting from USD 349 (649 USD for the black Sapphire-glass crytsal variant) in the US only.

TAGS: smartwatch, wearable, HP MB Chronowing Smartwatch

Microsoft has finally announced its entry into the wearable space, starting with a $199 fitness tracker and a cross-platform cloud service. The company's key focus will be revolutionizing global health and fitness, and while the wearable device is big news, it's sort of eclipsed by Microsoft's Health platform.

To put it simply, Microsoft Band (what the company is calling it) is a fitness tracker powered by Microsoft Health. The device's (and cloud service's) highlight is that it will be compatible will multiple platforms, being available to iOS, Android and Windows Phone users all at the same time.

In terms of the hardware itself, Microsoft is using Band similar to how it uses its Surface to set the hardware standards for other manufacturers. The company claims the device features today’s leading sensor technology, and is essentially made up of an accelerometer, GPS module, always-on heart-rate sensor and a simple LED screen on top.

Rather than just counting steps, Microsoft Band will combine data from the GPS and always-on heart-rate monitor to accurately measure the length of a wearer's strides and calories burned. "It really gets to a different level on fitness, on heart rate, on calorie count, on calorie burn, on what you're doing, because of that," said Zulfi Alam, General manager of personal devices at Microsoft, according to the Verge.

The company will also license the 10 different sensor modules it has developed for Band, so that other manufacturers can get in on Microsoft Health. While that's the hardware side of things, on the software front, at present Microsoft has tied up with Jawbone, MapMyFitness, My Fitness Pal, and Runkeeper to import their data.

Microsoft Band is still quite a simple device, and the company says it isn't trying to replace the watch on your wrist. The device houses a small rectangular screen that shows the time by default, and users will be able to scroll through tiles (no surprise there) that will display a users step count, workout data, etc. Band will also display phone notifications and there's even Cortana integration when paired to a Windows Phone.

While Microsoft Band is big news, Microsoft Health is what the company is really trying to sell to consumers. Band isn't that much different from what we've seen other manufacturers do, but it's what users will be able to do with the collected data that really holds promise. One thing however is crystal clear, Microsoft's take on health and fitness tracking is a culmination of mobile and cloud in the purest of senses.

TAGS: Microsoft, Microsoft Band, Microsoft Health, health & fitness tracker

Lenovo recently announced (then unannounced) its entry into the wearable space with Smartband, an activity tracker that monitors your heart-rate, steps taken and even shows phone notifications. While that doesn't sound too exciting, the company's fitness band may have a trick up its sleeve – it will unlock your PC when you're nearby.

That should be quite a handy feature for those who hate entering passwords, but still need to safeguard stored data from the prying eyes of friends and foes. Given that Lenovo's Smartband is a activity tracker that encourages you to wear it all day long, it should be the perfect device to automatically unlock your PC every time you get near it.

According to an Engadget report, the company had listed the Smartband on its official website (has been taken down), giving out a whole host of details including the proximity-based sign-in function. However, it isn't clear when you'll be able to get the device on your wrist, as the company hasn't yet announced when the device will go on sale.

TAGS: Lenovo, Smartband, health & fitness tracker

Google is rolling out its first major Android Wear update, which will allow the smartwatche OS to perform a few core functions without being tethered to a smartphone. Tweaks to the software will now allow an Android Wear device to stream music directly to a bluetooth headset, and use an internal GPS to track the wearer's location.

The update will give smartwatch wearers a certain degree of freedom from lugging around their smartphones, something Android Wear didn't make possible earlier. The new features will allow users to listen to music as well as track their progress while jogging, all this without the aid of a smartphone.

There is however a catch. Users of first generation Android Wear devices will not benefit massively from the update. While they'll be able to stream music directly from their wrists, devices like LG's G Watch, Samsung's Gear Live and the Moto 360 do not have built-in GPS modules to really make use of the location tracking feature.

Sony's upcoming Smartwatch 3 will be the first Android Wear device with GPS support to go on sale. It's also the first device of its type to add NFC support, and while that won't have much use at the moment, it's not hard to see how the device could be used for making wireless payments etc.

Android Wear devices have been criticized for merely being something that bombards you with notifications on your wrist. The newest update is beginning to show how things are going to change in the future. On the app front, Google says there are already tens of thousands of apps with support built in for Android Wear, and that number is only getting bigger.

TAGS: Google, Android Wear, smartwatch, wearable

The Moto 360 was one of the most highly anticipated devices of this year, but soon after it was launched everyone realized there was a massive elephant in the room – Pathetic battery life. Motorola then soon rolled out a software update to fix the issue, which some users claimed doubled the battery life of the device.

Now, the company has rolled out yet another software update, which supposedly improved battery life even further, apart from a few bug fixes and UI changes. The biggest boost to battery life comes with the device's ability to turn off Ambient Mode (that keeps the screen on at all times) when there's only 15% charge left.

Other updates include the ability to temporarily dismiss a notification right from the watch face, meaning you won't have to dig deeper within Android Wear anymore to do so. There's also a mood lighting setting that comes on when you place the device on its wireless charging dock, apart from some improvements to the Bluetooth.

Motorola has said that the update will be phased, so don't freak out if you haven't received it yet. The company hasn't specified a timeline within which users could receive the update, but as it is with such things, the entire update process should be done in a few weeks at most.

TAGS: Motorola, Moto 360, smartwatch, wearable

FitBit is all-set to launch three new fitness trackers in the coming weeks, and while two of those will be updated versions of the company's current crop of devices, the third wearable should be a flagship device called the Surge.

According to a Verge report, the Surge is what FitBit is calling a “superwatch” with built-in GPS tracking and TruePulse heart-rate monitoring. The device will provide wearers with real-time workout and other activity data, such as distance, pace, elevation climbed, heart rate intensity, and so on.

Leaked marketing material suggests that the device will cost $249, similar to smartwatches from more mainstream electronics manufacturers, but the Surge isn't a smartwatch. It is essentially a glorified fitness tracker, probably aimed at athletes, and will not go up against Android Wear and the Apple Watch.

The Surge will carry on FitBit's 24/7 activity tracking abilities, and will wirelessly sync all the data to the FitBit app on your smartphone. Users will be able to make sense of all that logged data with metrics such as calories burned, floors climbed and active minutes. There's also that brilliant FitBit sleep tracker and vibrating alarm.

Notifications, which seem to be a huge part of pretty much ever smartwatch out there will be restricted only to phone calls and texts. You'll also be able to control music playback right from your wrist, but that should be pretty much it. While the specs of the device have leaked in all their glory, there's no exact launch date yet.

Image courtesy: TheVerge.com

TAGS: FitBit, Surge, activity tracker, wearable

Off-late Microsoft has been lacking quick responses to new trends in the technology sector, especially when it comes to the burgeoning wearable space. However, a Forbes report claims that could soon change, as the Redmond-based tech giant is expected to unveil its very own smartwatch in the coming weeks.

According to the report, Microsoft's first wearable device will be all about health and fitness tracking, which while not a particularly new idea, should be quite interesting to see. The purported device will feature a heart-rate monitor and will be compatible across iOS, Android and its own Windows platforms.

Microsoft's upcoming smartwatch will supposedly last for two days on a single charge with regular use and will be available in time for the holiday shopping season later this year. The unidentified sources Forbes cites say that the device will resemble Samsung's Gear Fit, with a full-color touch screen and wrist-band like construction.

The wearable space, especially smartwatches and devices like Google Glass are receiving a great deal of attention from consumers. While the market for wearables is still miniscule in comparison to smartphones, it is expected to quickly grow as these devices become more useful and also cheaper.

Microsoft may be a year or two late to the smartwatch game, but going by the fact that rivals Google, Apple and Samsung haven't really figured out the market yet, the company does have a healthy fighting chance. The news is far from confirmed, and even if Microsoft doesn't reveal its smartwatch in the coming weeks, it's only a matter of time before the company has to get into the space.

Earlier rumors had hinted that Microsoft's smartwatch could feature an always on heart-rate monitor, which if true, could disrupt the health and fitness wearable space. The other big winner will be the device's cross compatibility, especially since the company's is a distant third in the share of the smartphone market it controls.

TAGS: Microsoft, smartwatch, wearable, Samsung, Gear Fit, fitness-tracker

Alongside unveiling its latest high-end phablet – Galaxy Note 4 – in India, Samsung also launched its Tizen-based Gear S smartwatch in the country. The device has been priced at Rs 29,500, and has the ability to connect to 2G/3G networks to allow users to make and receive calls.

Samsung is marketing the Gear S as a standalone device, which doesn't need to be in close proximity to a smartphone to be of any real use. The device can stay connected via a whole host of networks, 2G/3G cellular networks, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0, but in no way is it a replacement for the smartphone in your pocket.

The Gear S features a 2-inch curved AMOLED display with a resolution of 360x480 pixels. Powering the device is a dual-core 1GHz processor, coupled to 512MB of RAM. There's 4GB of on-board storage, a 300mAh battery that's supposedly good for 2 days of use on a single charge and a tray for the nanoSIM at the back.

Pretty much the only party trick of the Gear S is the ability to display notifications from text messages, social networks, calendars and a few other apps without being paired to a smartphone. Users will also be able to reply to these notifications through voice, and of course there's also an on-screen keyboard.

Like some of its other smartwatches, the Gear S gets a heart-rate sensor at the rear, and Samsung has loaded its own S Health app apart from Nike+ Running. Users will also have a turn-by-turn navigation service, provided by who else by Nokia's Here Maps service.

With the market for smartwatches is growing at breakneck speeds, it's okay to see manufacturers throw up all sorts of contraptions until they find that winning formula. The biggest problem holding back the Gear S however is its ridiculous price tag, which is bordering high-end smartphone territory.

TAGS: Samsung, Samsung Gear S, smartwatch, wearable

Virtual reality has been positioned as the “next-big-thing” in the tech world, and while this revolution hasn't kicked off just yet, consumers could soon be spoiled for choice. Carl Zeiss is the latest entrant into the emerging segment - after Oculus, Google and Samsung - and has shown off its VR One, a $99 headset for smartphone users.

The concept of the VR One is very similar to that of Samsung's Gear VR – a phone powering a virtual reality headset, utilizing the screen, processing power and plethora of its sensors. Unlike the Gear VR however, Carl Zeiss' device will support devices from multiple manufacturers, working with any smartphone between 4.7-inch and 5.2-inch.

Users can already pre-order the VR One of Carl Zeiss' official website, however, in order to make any phone work with the device, buyers will have to shell out an additional $9.90 for drawers specific to their phone. The company has said that the first consignment of the device will begin shipping in Christmas this year, and will fully go on sale only next year.

A huge part of a VR headset's quality is its optics, so with Carl Zeiss handling that bit of it, the VR One is sure to produce some great 3D visuals. The other part will be dependent on the quality of the smartphone screen, and as Oculus has shown us with the Rift 2, a 720 display is adequate to provide an awesome immersive experience.

Carl Zeiss is also taking suggestions from prospective buyers for what phones should be supported by its VR One. There won't be any change to the main hardware of the headset when using different phones, just the drawer that holds the smartphone in place will differ.

TAGS: Carl Zeiss, VR One, virtual reality, Headsets

If you were impressed with the slim, all-metal ASUS ZenWatch launched at the IFA Berlin and decided to skip on the Moto 360 and wait for it; well you will have to wait a little longer. News is that ASUS will begin pushing out units of the ZenWatch only in November. Moreover, sources also confirm that the Android-Wear powered smartwatch will be available in limited quantities only in its home market in Taiwan.

Android fans who have been waiting for a slimmer Android-Wear powered smartwatch, will indeed have a lot more waiting to do. While current offerings including the Moto 360 are pretty chunky, LG’s much awaited G Watch R is yet to be launched (although the launch seems imminent). ASUS does offer a much slimmer all-metal offering running Android Wear but comes with that retro design that many desire.

The ASUS ZenWatch sports 1.63 inch 320 x 320 pixel AMOLED display, with a 1.2 GHz Snapdragon 400 processor at the heart. The device comes with 4 GB of ROM and 512 MB of RAM which are pretty much the hardware specs of the Nokia Lumia 530 smartphone.

Indeed those looking for a slimmer smartwatch in India will have to wait first for the G Watch R and then the ASUS. Since stocks coming in will be limited in ASUS’ hometown itself, we can clearly not expect it to reach Indian soil any time soon.

Source

TAGS: smartwatch, wearable, Android Wear, ASUS ZenWatch, ASUS

HTC is holding a press event later today, but has confirmed that a smartwatch of any sort isn't going to be unveiled just yet. Speaking to Re/Code, the Taiwanese firm said that a wearable launch was due for right about now, but the company is holding back from launching the device this year.

“We had originally planned to have a wearable launch in this time frame,” said Jason Mackenzie, head of HTC America. “It ended up just not being ready.”

Further, Drew Bamford, who heads HTC's Creative Labs said that the current crop of wearables on the market don't do much to earn their space on wrists. “We honestly don’t think anyone has gotten it right,” he added. HTC believes its development strategy will help it change that, but getting it right will require some more time.

Considering the limiting features of current wearables in terms of battery life and the fact that they are merely devices that deliver notifications to your wrist, HTC's move is more than justifiable. However, not having a product on the market means the company is losing valuable up-time, and could fall behind its rivals.

The company says its product will come to the market only when it figures a stronger use case, compelling users to strap the device onto their wrists. There are a plethora of wearables currently on the market, and while some are great, we can't help by side with HTC when they say there isn't a good enough reason to wear one everyday.

TAGS: HTC, smartwatch, wearable

Samsung for once actually seems to be keeping up to its promises in terms of providing third-party apps for its unique products. The Gear S was clearly a unique device in the smartwatch world and did not run on the Android Wear platform, but on Samsung’s own Tizen-based OS. While Samsung has always promised 3rd party apps from developers, the company never really delivered no matter what product they had in hand. Well, in case of Samsung’s Gear S, things are indeed changing for the good.

This time around Samsung has joined hands with Opera and has now announced Opera Mini for the Gear S. Yes, you will be able to browse the web with ease on your watch (when it is available) and it even includes some finger-friendly navigation features as well (spy watches all of a sudden seem obsolete). The Smart Page feature gives users the ability to check out social updates right on their smartwatches, while the legendary Speed Dial buttons are larger to help users get to their favourite websites quicker. Then there is the horizontal swiping to help your navigate through web pages as well.

Samsung had recently announced that it was joining hands with Nokia for HERE Maps and while there is an Android app (for Samsung smartphones only) in the works, they were quick to announce that there would be a HERE for Gear app launched for the Gear S Smartwatch as well.

Source

TAGS: wearable, smartwatch, Software, Samsung, Samsung Gear S

The LG G Watch R was announced sometime before the IFA Berlin. And while LG did host a grand event for the announcement of its second, refreshed Android-Wear offering, the launch of the smartwatch in India along with the pricing is nowhere to be found. Well, news is that a local online retailer in Korea has supposedly cut a deal with LG and will be offering the LG G Watch R exclusively for a week in Korea, starting tomorrow.

What comes to light here is the price tag of the smartwatch, something that was a mystery with the Moto 360 and has again been a similar story since the G Watch R was announced. The price, says a source is higher than the original G Watch. LG’s round smartwatch offering will cost buyers KRW 352,000; that’s approximately Rs 20,000 in Indian monies.

While the Moto 360 is currently retailing for Rs 17,999 online in India, LG’s offering being slimmer with a completely round display can easily demand a higher price. This is possible considering that the smartwatches are clearly disappearing off shelves much faster than manufacturers can stock them back on. The Moto 360 is already out of stock on Flipkart even at Rs 18,000.

The LG G Watch R comes with a round POLED (plastic organic LED) display with a 320 x 320 resolution, a Snapdragon 400 humming inside and a 410 mAh battery powering the smartwatch and all its sensors.
 

TAGS: wearable, smartwatch, Android Wear, LG G Watch R

The Motorola Moto 360 seems to have gotten a lot of attention right from the very beginning, when Google first announced the Android Wear platform. Ever since, consumers have been dying to get their hands on one. Google satiated the needs of many by launching the Samsung Gear Live and the LG G Watch in India (pretty quickly we might add), but the Moto 360 is still the smartwatch that not only looks better but comes with that (almost) round display as well.

The smartwatch was listed on Flipkart’s website for long, but never had a price tag on it. Good news is that it had finally arrived. The online retail giant had finally attached a price tag of Rs 17,999 for the smartwatch that had been listed as ‘coming soon’. Sadly though, that joy was short-lived as Flipkart has now taken down the price tag. May be the smartwatch will be available at a lower price, considering that Asus and LG did showed up with some interesting offerings at and before the IFA Berlin that would force the Moto 360 to go on a diet.

Motorola clearly could not have chosen a better time to launch the smartwatch as the festive season is approaching. Again, we are pretty sure that considering the demand for smartwatches here in India and the short supplies that get here, we could expect a lot of them to go on sale with higher price tags in the grey market.

The Moto 360 comes with round 1.5 inch touch screen display of 320 x 290 pixel resolution and is powered by an Texas Instruments OMAP 3 SoC with 512 MB of RAM and 4 GB of ROM. The chunky yet retro-modern design of the smartwatch allows Motorola to pack in a lot of sensors including a pedometer and an optical heart rate monitor to name a few.

Even though the design is a bit chunky, and even though it costs Rs 18,000 we should expect the Moto 360 to get sold out in a few minutes as stocks will indeed be limited (similar to every other Android-Wear smartwatch that has entered the Indian market).

TAGS: wearable, smartwatch, Android Wear, Motorola Moto 360, Motorola

The Moto 360 was one of the most hotly awaited devices of 2014, but soon after its launch reports of its sub-par battery life did earn it some bad rep. However, the update pushed out by Motorola last week seems to have greatly improved the device's power management, with some users claiming the battery life has doubled.

The software update, known by build number KGW42R, focuses on Bluetooth connectivity and some other bug fixes, and seems to have hugely affected battery life. Users voiced their experiences on Reddit, with one of the more dramatic cases being a user reporting 30 hours of use with an amazing 53% battery remaining.

That however was possible with the Ambient Mode, which has the screen 'on' at all times displaying a watch face, turned off. Still, there have been tweaks made to the Ambient Mode as well which dims the display down to its lowest level, and runs a minimal watch face, which helps save charge.

While there's still no concrete proof of how much better the battery life of the Moto 360 has gotten, but it shouldn't be long before we have someone do a comprehensive test. If the battery life has in fact improved, it will be interesting to see if the Moto 360 can match LG's G Watch, which will help it win in terms of beauty as well as brawn.

TAGS: Motorola, Moto 360, smartwatch, wearable

TAGS: LG, smartwatch, G Watch, wearable, Samsung Gear S

E-commerce is one of the fastest growing sectors in the Indian technology space, given the sheer volume of consumers gaining access to the Internet each year. Fashion retailer Myntra is one of the most popular online buying platforms, but is looking at avenues which were once under traditional electronics, to boost its growth.

The company which was recently bought by India's largest e-commerce player Flipkart, claims nearly one-third of all its sales come from the 'sports category. While fitness oriented fashion products are always popular, it can also be inferred that there's a growing need for products that promote healthy lifestyles.

Wearables are as much an offshoot of the electronics industry as they are of the fashion trade. It has often been argued that unlike smartphones which rest on a desk or in a users pocket for most of the time, wearables have to be beautiful as they're worn on the body. Moreover, wearables in their current form of devices that help users be more productive and stay fit.

Myntra has recognized the potential market for wearables in the fashion space, and recently tied up with an Indian manufacture of fitness trackers, GetActive. The company brings forth its USP of helping people look better, rather than merely selling clothing and accessories, in order to market the product which is aimed at promoting health and fitness.

Sports, youth and health & fitness will drive growth of the e-commerce space according to Myntra, at least when it comes to selling fashion products. Wearables also opens the door for the company to gain in on the exploding market for online sale of electronics. Recently, exclusive tie-ups between smartphone manufacturers and e-commerce companies has been highly successful.

According to Mukesh Bansal, co-founder and CEO of Myntra, the wrist is currently the hottest piece of real-estate in the fashion and electronic sectors. With the likes of giants like Google, Apple and Samsung outing their wristwear, consumers in India are bound to take notice of global trends and invest in these devices.

Moreover, the company feels it's the perfect platform to sell any device related to health and fitness, given the already existing data set of buyers interested in fitness wear. Myntra's move only goes to show that wearables are more interdisciplinary than other electronics, prompting manufacturers to develop not just functional pieces of kit, but also ones that people don't mind been seen wearing.

TAGS: Myntra, wearable, E-Commerce

Sony has revealed that it plans to bring the Android Wear-powered Smartwatch 3 and SmartBand Talk fitness band to India in the month of December. The devices were unveiled alongside the Xperia Z3 family at the IFA conference earlier this year, and while Sony's latest smartphones have made it to India, we're going to have to wait a little longer for its wearables.

Smartwatch 3

The Smartwatch 3 is Sony's first device to run on Google's Android Wear operating system, meaning it should function almost exactly like LG's G Watch and Samsung's Gear Live. On the hardware front the device sports a 1.6-inch 320×320 square display, 1.2GHz quad-core processor, 512MB of RAM and 4GB of storage.

With Google locking down the software side of things with Android Wear, Sony is left to play around with the hardware, and they've stuck to what we've seen on previous models. The main unit is removable, allowing users to easily swap bands, which will be available in a variety of colours.

SmartBand Talk

The SmartBand Talk is Sony's other wearable device, and might we say the more interesting of the two. Essentially a fitness tracker, the company has added a 1.4-inch rectangular e-ink display at the front allowing users to answer calls, receive notifications, read messages and a few other nifty things.

The device is in some ways a primitive smartwatch, but if priced similarly to its predecessor, the SmartBand talk could be a great device to own, especially in India. Further, Sony has stuck with its pill design for the main unit, while the bands can be swapped out by buyers for various different shades.

Pricing details of the two devices aren't known at this moment, but it's likely that the Smartwatch 3 will be priced in line with what Samsung and LG ask for their first generation Android Wear devices. The SmartBand Talk on the other hand offers more features than a regular fitness tracker, but any elevation in price would put it in contention with smartwatches.

TAGS: Sony, SmartWatch 3, SmartBand Talk, smartwatch, fitness-tracker

US-based smartwatch manufacturer Martian has tied up with India's largest e-retailer Flipkart to bring its first product, the Notifier, to the country. The device is priced at Rs 9,999 and is up for pre-order as off immediately, with shipments starting only in early October.

As its name suggests, the Martian Notifier will be limited to notifying you about incoming calls, texts, emails, the weather and a few other things. The device is basically a dumb watch with a small notification screen at the bottom, but doesn't allow you to interact with incoming messages like other smartwatches.

The Martian Notifier is compatible with Apple's iOS devices – iPhone 4s and up, 5^th gen iPod Touch, 3^rd gen iPad and up – as well as any Android device running 2.3.3 Gingerbread and above. The device will however not support Windows Phone devices, which is rather unfortunate given the platform's popularity in India.

While various manufacturers are bringing their wearable devices to the Indian market, it is yet to be seen if these devices actually gain traction among smartphone users. LG, Sony and Samsung already have their devices in the market, with Motorola all-set to unveil its Moto 360 in the country soon.

The cost of ownership is most likely going to be the biggest detriment to smartwatch sales in India, with flagship Android Wear devices costing as much as a mid-range smartphone. Unless the prices align to cater to low to mid range smartphone buyers, smartwatches will only cater to a niche audience in the country., 

TAGS: Martian, Notifier, Flipkart, smartwatch

Clearly, Samsung was not satisfied by the response to its Gear S smartwatch at the IFA Berlin. Moreover after Apple announced its sleek Apple Watch, things may turned too sour; so much so that the company is again working on a standalone smartwatch. This time around they will also be including mobile payments, which will be facilitated by a fingerprint scanner... on the smartwatch!

The news is apparently pretty much credible and comes from high-ranking officer at Samsung Electronics. Samsung has joined hands with Synaptics for biometric security solutions; and has also included PayPal to put things into practice.

The new smartwatch will come with a fingerprint sensor and becomes a part of a network that will send promotional offers that you can purchase even if you are standing right outside a store. Also, sources say that the new smartwatch will be a standalone solution and will not need the assistance of a smartphone to enable the payments. More importantly, similar to the GALAXY S5, Samsung plans to put this smartwatch payment in place globally across 50 countries. Indeed the Korean company has big plans.

This could indeed be the smartwatch that appeared in the news a few months ago, back in June, when Synaptics CEO, Rick Bergman spoke about a smartwatch that the company was working on. The smartwatch supposedly had a curved display on it, but back then was linked to the SAMI health monitoring platform that Samsung had unveiled.

Since Apple also unveiled Apple Pay, Samsung also had to come up with something similar and since they had already partnered with PayPal in the past, it would make complete sense to extend the functionality altogether. With the muscles to flex, Samsung could be up to something big here. As for the launch date for this system and smartwatch, expect it to happen at the next Mobile World Congress in February 2015, right before the Apple Watch launches.

Source

TAGS: smartwatch, wearable, Samsung, Apple Watch