A new “OWY” smartphone manufactured by Samsung Electronics appeared in the database of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) earlier this week, with the standards agency confirming that the device was certified as being operational in a set of documents published on Monday. The product is clearly described as a “mobile phone,” though the listing doesn’t reveal any particular hardware specifications of the handset that even lacks a model number. However, Bluetooth SIG revealed that the Samsung OWY is compatible with Bluetooth 5.0, the latest iteration of the popular wireless standard, indicating that the smartphone will be powered by one of the most recently released mobile chips.
Bluetooth 5.0 is currently only supported by Samsung’s own Exynos 8895 system-on-chip (SoC) powering the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus, as well as a number of Qualcomm’s offerings – the Snapdragon 630, Snapdragon 660, and the Snapdragon 835. Due to that state of affairs, the Samsung OWY is a mid-range device at worst, and one that may actually compete in the upper mid-range segment seeing how even the Snapdragon 630 is one of the best-performing chips in this class. The fact that the handset was submitted without a model number isn’t a standard industry practice, especially not for Samsung, though the South Korean original equipment manufacturer (OEM) clearly labeled the device as being an “end product,” suggesting that its research and development (R&D) phase is already completed. In light of that fact, the Samsung OWY likely already has a model number but the Seoul-based phone maker opted not to disclose it to Bluetooth SIG due to an unknown reason.
The Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus were the first consumer-grade smartphones with Bluetooth 5.0 support, and it seems that the tech giant is now adamant to continue adopting this standard with its upcoming devices. The new major announcement from the company is scheduled to arrive in late August when Samsung promised to officially unveil the Galaxy Note 8, though that particular phablet is unlikely to be the product described above seeing how its variants already received most of the necessary certificates, with the device itself being set to hit the market in less than two months.