Smartwatches are taking over the wearable world by storm, and on a playing field that was once only used by Pebbles or Sony, the entire pack of major hard-hitters have joined them – Samsung, Motorola and LG – with others on the way. Samsung, LG and Sony all stuck with the square or rectangle shape in order to be more like a small smartphone or tablet shape, and while they have sold fairly well, none of them generated the kind of excitement that the round-faced Motorola 360 could. It is a thing of beauty with its stainless steel bezel and choice of bands – more of a fine timepiece first, followed by being a smartwatch. LG jumped in the round field by releasing an even bolder statement with their LG G Watch R – a watch that definitely looks like a drivers watch with smartwatch functions.
Not to be outdone by the Motorola, LG and not to mention Apple, Samsung has been working on a round-shaped watch for some time now – codenamed, Orbis. The patents and drawings (see above) were filed back in 2013 and feature a rotating bezel top ring and, like Apple, a crown shaped power-button. There were rumors that it would be announced during the upcoming MWC in February and now our source claims it has been confirmed – next month at MWC, Samsung will announce their new round-faced wonder…perhaps called the ‘Gear R.’
Obviously, we do not know exactly how the total functionality of the rotating bezel will fit in with the new watch’s design – it could be used for zooming in and zooming out, or perhaps certain functions, such as setting an alarm or jumping from one function to another. Samsung may only skim the surface of what the bezel can be used for, instead, allowing the app developers to use their SDK for developing their own functions. As far as the crown-shaped power button, our source says that this will be used for a lot more than simply turning the device on or off. It will be used for waking up the screen, launching S Voice with a double press and sending an emergency message, as well as possibly other functions, but the advanced functions will be handled by the rotating ring or bezel.
We will try and get more information about the orbis, but one thing we can speculate is that it will be a high-end device so we can most likely expect it to cost as much or more than the Gear S. Please hit us up on our Google+ Page and let us know if you already own a smartwatch and if you are intrigued by Samsung’s upcoming round smartwatch – do you prefer rectangle or round? As always, we would love to hear from you.