Recently I switched back to Samsung, specifically the Note 3.  Since my decision Samsung has decided to pursue a hardware ecosystem whereby their devices talk to other devices (e.g. my Samsung phone can load content to my Samsung TV and act as a remote — neither of these acts does it do, by the way, very well).

So does Samsung do any better with their “Smart” watch than anyone else?  And why would I want to get a Samsung SmartWatch (at a definite premium over a generic Smart Watch like the Sony or Pebble Watches)?

So first of all, let’s talk about what a SmartWatch is.  A lot of manufacturers have tried to skin this onion by throwing all kinds of features at a watch, sort of making a generic platform, and letting other companies write apps.  This has worked well in the SmartPhone space, so why not?

Enter Sony Smart Watch 2

Sony has taken this approach, the basic watch from Sony is just that, a watch.  To this you install apps. Now first comment, I appreciate the fact that with “apps” we’ve gone from manuals to online help guides to context sensitive help “?” to … well, nothing.  It would be nice if Sony somewhere simply said “install the connector on your Android phone and then use the connector to find apps”.  While it was not overly onerous to figure this out (basically I found the apps and they said the connector was required) it just seemed like something that would be a stumbling block for someone who isn’t familiar with how Sony has designed their ecosystem.  Like many technical things, it’s simple once one has it explained but like many technical companies, no one explains it!

In any event enter the Sony Smart Watch 2 (2nd attempt); a very smart looking smart watch, with a nice band, excellent battery life, smart features (like auto dim and low energy use mode), a fairly responsive screen.

Where Sony fails — especially in my opinion — is to allow 3rd parties to replace the actual watch face.  I believe that people buy a watch first and foremost as a watch.  To truly make a watch worth spending hundreds of dollars on, the manufacturer should allow access to “look and feel” so that they can take advantage of their plan (let 3rd parties do the software, let Sony do the hardware).  If Sony decided to use 3rd parties for apps, they should commit 100% to this path.  When you download a 3rd party clock face even with this Sony’s second revision, you have to run it as an app and essentially you have a clock face AND a clock app running. How dumb is that? (e.g. there’s no way to make your download clock the default face, you have to switch to it each time you bring up your watch).

All together, Sony has a nice idea and a fairly good approach, but it fails on the typical level — the apps that are out there are limited in how they operate (e.g. the official Calendar app from Sony only works with Google Calendar, forget any business user that uses some other system — Android can recognize multiple calendars from multiple systems, why can’t an Android watch?) and the number of quality apps appear to be a fairly short list.

Enter Samsung

Samsung has taken a page out of Apple’s book.  Their Galaxy Gear watch is designed to only work with Samsung, well, gear.  In fact it’s designed to only work with the Galaxy Note and one specific Galaxy Tablet.  (this is changing keep tuned to Samsung)

The chicken and the egg approach really seems to be ‘will the Gear sell the Note’ or ‘will the Note sell the Gear’.  Since Samsung has released several other new phones around the same time (the Samsung S4 and the Samsung Mega) with similar features it feels like Samsung is experimenting with this model (hardware selling hardware) and has purposefully created a limited “test group” to see if sales are impacted.  There doesn’t appear to be any practical reason why this watch couldn’t work with any other phone in Samsung’s line or frankly any other Android.  I’d expect that once they see how past Holiday sales have gone they’ll unbundle this artificial limit.

The Samsung watch is a little clunkier than the Sony, but surprisingly it seems to work.  While the Sony watchband is more standard and polished looking it’s one of those metal watch expander bands, so if you have any body hair on your wrists you’re going to have it pulled at (at least until there isn’t any, anymore). The screen is beautifully vibrant and bright.  It definitely makes the Sony screen look washed out, but this comes at a price — battery life is a day or so (if you turn it off at night) unlike the Sony which is 2~3 days or maybe 5 if you turn it off. The screen is also much more sensitive than the Sony.  I find myself pushing the Sony over and over to get it to recognize me, the Samsung screen seems as responsive as the Samsung phone screen.

Like with Sony, the Samsung watch requires a specific app to be installed which then can support 3rd party apps.  Unlike the Sony, instructions were included and are really rather unique.

You click the charger “enclosure” against your phone and it downloads a snipped of code to self install the app (via NFC).  Not sure why, but at last an NFC app that you actually need! A rather interesting approach, but one that I think will eventually go away.

Android already has a method for install apps, why create a new one that the brick and mortar store has people on hand to explain.

The NFC install works okay and it eliminates the step of blue-tooth syncing (the charger case has the watches unique ID and does the work for you, rather than doing the blue-tooth shuffle of syncing and then confirming on both devices that you’re connecting to the right device). But again, this is something people have already been trained on, why create a new way of doing something that works well enough as is. It’s a distraction.

What Samsung does do well is the integrated apps.  The official “base line” apps are installed on the watch and make the watch work flawless right out of the gate.  There are several neat watch faces (time & weather, time & calendar, old fashion watch style, time & quick app access, etc.) and additional watch faces can be uploaded from the store and added to the watch face list.  Simple.

Besides this there are three built in apps that make the watch do something other than being a watch.  One is the phone answer capabilities.  Say you’re walking down the street, you phone is in your pocket, blue tooth is in your ear and you you wrist vibrates.  No checking your pocket (is my phone really ringing or is it a text or is it just my imagination?).  You glance at your watch and see right away it’s a call, and who it is.  The standard Android accept/reject swipe is there and if you chose reject you’ll get a list of “canned” rejection messages to immediately text to the caller (e.g. I’m driving — well, that canned one seems like it shouldn’t be there — !).

In the case of a txt you get notified you have a txt and who it’s from, click on the name and the actual txt appear.  If it’s long you can scroll.

So what this watch does that few others do properly is allow you to change your phone behavior to one that’s actually simpler.  Instead of pulling you phone out of pocket, opening the case, looking for where the apps is or if the phone is ringing… you simple respond to the watch that’s pre-populated the right interface for you to act on. It improves your phone interaction rather then simply repeating similar features on a different device. To me this is the holy grail (unlike the Sony where txt reception is possible, but is an add on and a little clunky (and there’s a perceptible delay from phone vibrate to watch vibrate).

Also the watch serves as a phone “un-locker” which is really pretty cool. If you’re anywhere near your phone it un-locks if the watch connects, if you wander away from your phone your watch lets you know (albeit via a rather inelegant Bluetooth disconnected notice).

So stay tuned as the next edition of watches comes down the pipeline!