Samsung’s Value Pack Gear S3 update is hitting more devices it looks like as users in the U.S. are seemingly reporting the update showing up for them in their Gear app. The Value Pack update was pushed to an extended amount of devices back in April after initially being rolled out to some users in March, and during the April push Samsung had mentioned that it would be hitting more markets in the future. Samsung wasn’t clear about which markets those would be but it seems at least some additional users who are in the U.S. are now receiving that update.
The Value Pack Update include a ton of new features and improvements, though most of the changes are more improvement than actual new feature. Among these includes the ability to add music controls to some of the watch faces that can be applied to the device. This doesn’t include all watch faces as pointed out by Samsung in their update changelog which you can see a screenshot of below. That said this should make it easier than ever for users to pause and play songs when on the go simply by tapping the buttons on their wrist as long as they’re using a supported watch face. The update also includes the BMW Connected app that allows users to control certain features of their compatible BWM vehicles.
As noted back in April it’s possible for users to add dates and times to reminders using S Voice. If you use the watch to set reminders often then this should make things a whole lot more inclusive and detailed when you decide to go back to those reminders to look at them on your connected smartphone. For stopwatch users Samsung has upped the amount of time that can be set with a stopwatch timer, as it’s now possible to set the stopwatch to three hours at a maximum. The update also includes Gear for Nest as a set of controller options to help users control their Nest devices in the home. As smart home devices become more and more common it won’t be such a shock to see other connected devices capable of interacting with them for various functions, eliminating more of a need to interact with them directly. This update also includes support for Facer which introduces a ton of new watch face options, and New York City transit alerts. The changelog is listed below and if you haven’t gotten the update or you’re not sure if it’s already arrived on your device, the build number should end with BQD4.