Rumor: Samsung to double down on fitness with Gear Fit 2 and 'Bio-Processor'

Posted:
in General Discussion
Images leaked on Monday showed Samsung's upcoming Gear Fit 2, a device that may provide tougher competition in fitness wearables for companies like Apple and Fitbit.




The new device includes a wider display than the original Fit, according to photos discovered by SamMobile. This should allow it to show much more information onscreen, in a style akin to full-scale smartwatches like the Apple Watch, or some higher-end fitness trackers.

Two of the photos in fact show a map view tracing a run, which could indicate the Fit 2 will have built-in GPS, or at least be able to tap into a smartphone's GPS to similar effect. Only expensive top-end fitness trackers tend to come with built-in GPS, as a rule.

Earlier rumors have suggested the Fit 2 will have a 1.84-inch AMOLED display, 4 gigabytes of storage, a heartrate monitor, and a graphics processor embedded into its CPU. The device may also sport Samsung's "Bio-Processor," intended to improve the general accuracy of fitness tracking.

The gapless construction of the Fit 2 could hint that it will be waterproof. While many wearables are water-resistant, like the Watch and the earlier Fit, relatively few are actually waterproof and hence safe to take swimming or in the shower.

The new device is expected to launch in June. Although Apple is hosting its Worldwide Developers Conference that month, there's no indication -- yet -- that the company will have any sort of "reply" to Samsung, whether in terms of new Watch hardware or a watchOS update.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 13
    rogifan_newrogifan_new Posts: 4,297member
    And people say Watch is fugly...
  • Reply 2 of 13
    redstaterredstater Posts: 49member
    "Two of the photos in fact show a map view tracing a run, which could indicate the Fit 2 will have built-in GPS, or at least be able to tap into a smartphone's GPS to similar effect. Only expensive top-end fitness trackers tend to come with built-in GPS, as a rule." First, the Gear Fit is a smart watch, just a cheaper one with a smaller screen and less features the Galaxy Gear, and hence is not merely an activity tracker with a bigger display akin to devices like the Fitbit Charge and the Garmin VivoFit. The OS on the Gear Fit is the same as on the Galaxy Gear S2: Tizen. Both the original Galaxy Gear and Gear Fit ran (pre-Android Wear) Android and were updated to Tizen when Samsung decided to go their own way on wearables and IoT. With that in mind, the Galaxy Gear and several - but not all - Android Wear devices have GPS built in. Whether Apple should follow suit depends on whether Apple sees the Apple Watch as a fitness device or a fashion device. If it is the latter, they should worry about the device's size, shape, band, battery life and aesthetics and forget about the power-draining GPS. If it is the former, then yes GPS is the direction that they should go. Or ... if they absolutely must include a power-draining feature, do some innovating and make it 3G with SIM-card emulation software that a carrier could use to give it the same phone number as your iPhone. (That Google, supposedly a software/services leader, hasn't done this yet despite having a 1 year head start is laughable, especially since Google already has apps like Messenger, Hangouts and Voice that could take full advantage.) An alternative: come up with multiple models of Apple Watch like Motorola. The Motorola base model watch does not offer 3G, but the Motorola Sport does. LG has one watch that supports LTE and another that doesn't. So Apple could offer devices with combinations of Wi-Fi, 3G and GPS depending on price point.
  • Reply 3 of 13
    foggyhillfoggyhill Posts: 4,767member
    This is the most fucking ugly thing I've ever seen.Beyond ugly, it's the next stage of ugliness : a new frontier
    redstater said:
    "Two of the photos in fact show a map view tracing a run, which could indicate the Fit 2 will have built-in GPS, or at least be able to tap into a smartphone's GPS to similar effect. Only expensive top-end fitness trackers tend to come with built-in GPS, as a rule." First, the Gear Fit is a smart watch, just a cheaper one with a smaller screen and less features the Galaxy Gear, and hence is not merely an activity tracker with a bigger display akin to devices like the Fitbit Charge and the Garmin VivoFit. The OS on the Gear Fit is the same as on the Galaxy Gear S2: Tizen. Both the original Galaxy Gear and Gear Fit ran (pre-Android Wear) Android and were updated to Tizen when Samsung decided to go their own way on wearables and IoT. With that in mind, the Galaxy Gear and several - but not all - Android Wear devices have GPS built in. Whether Apple should follow suit depends on whether Apple sees the Apple Watch as a fitness device or a fashion device. If it is the latter, they should worry about the device's size, shape, band, battery life and aesthetics and forget about the power-draining GPS. If it is the former, then yes GPS is the direction that they should go. Or ... if they absolutely must include a power-draining feature, do some innovating and make it 3G with SIM-card emulation software that a carrier could use to give it the same phone number as your iPhone. (That Google, supposedly a software/services leader, hasn't done this yet despite having a 1 year head start is laughable, especially since Google already has apps like Messenger, Hangouts and Voice that could take full advantage.) An alternative: come up with multiple models of Apple Watch like Motorola. The Motorola base model watch does not offer 3G, but the Motorola Sport does. LG has one watch that supports LTE and another that doesn't. So Apple could offer devices with combinations of Wi-Fi, 3G and GPS depending on price point.

    .If Apple does a "gps version", it should be a separate one than existing models, one dedicated to sports exclusively, at least for now, since GPS/Cell (the only way to get correct position quick) is massively draining and you don't get through the day with it unless the watch/band is way way bigger than the AW.
    edited May 2016 pscooter63
  • Reply 4 of 13
    coolfactorcoolfactor Posts: 2,239member
    Just watch any space-oriented sci-fi show to see what the future looks like. Devices like this fit right in.
  • Reply 5 of 13
    NY1822NY1822 Posts: 621member
    Horrible looking...this is what happens when Samsung has to design their own product without the luxury of cloning apples...
    anton zuykov
  • Reply 6 of 13
    slprescottslprescott Posts: 765member
    Call it the "Samsung Handcuff".  That's how it appears.
    pscooter63anton zuykov
  • Reply 7 of 13
    I'll presume that the pic bottom row, second from left was flipped by someone who is not Samsung to make them appear the foolish fools who blew the auto-orientation test. If not, egregious. (Although pic right above it isn't much better.) ({[On third viewing, I'm pretty sure I see the thumb, which means either the device doesn't rotate, or the customer bought the left-wrist model and attached it to wrong arm.]})
    edited May 2016
  • Reply 8 of 13
    apple ][apple ][ Posts: 9,233member
    That really does look horrible.

    It looks like some sort of electronic wrist monitor that slaves or felons would be required to wear in the future sometime.
    edited May 2016
  • Reply 9 of 13
    pscooter63pscooter63 Posts: 1,080member
    First thing I thought of:

    slprescott
  • Reply 10 of 13
    larryalarrya Posts: 606member
    foggyhill said:
    This is the most fucking ugly thing I've ever seen.Beyond ugly, it's the next stage of ugliness : a new frontier
    redstater said:
    "Two of the photos in fact show a map view tracing a run, which could indicate the Fit 2 will have built-in GPS, or at least be able to tap into a smartphone's GPS to similar effect. Only expensive top-end fitness trackers tend to come with built-in GPS, as a rule." First, the Gear Fit is a smart watch, just a cheaper one with a smaller screen and less features the Galaxy Gear, and hence is not merely an activity tracker with a bigger display akin to devices like the Fitbit Charge and the Garmin VivoFit. The OS on the Gear Fit is the same as on the Galaxy Gear S2: Tizen. Both the original Galaxy Gear and Gear Fit ran (pre-Android Wear) Android and were updated to Tizen when Samsung decided to go their own way on wearables and IoT. With that in mind, the Galaxy Gear and several - but not all - Android Wear devices have GPS built in. Whether Apple should follow suit depends on whether Apple sees the Apple Watch as a fitness device or a fashion device. If it is the latter, they should worry about the device's size, shape, band, battery life and aesthetics and forget about the power-draining GPS. If it is the former, then yes GPS is the direction that they should go. Or ... if they absolutely must include a power-draining feature, do some innovating and make it 3G with SIM-card emulation software that a carrier could use to give it the same phone number as your iPhone. (That Google, supposedly a software/services leader, hasn't done this yet despite having a 1 year head start is laughable, especially since Google already has apps like Messenger, Hangouts and Voice that could take full advantage.) An alternative: come up with multiple models of Apple Watch like Motorola. The Motorola base model watch does not offer 3G, but the Motorola Sport does. LG has one watch that supports LTE and another that doesn't. So Apple could offer devices with combinations of Wi-Fi, 3G and GPS depending on price point.

    .If Apple does a "gps version", it should be a separate one than existing models, one dedicated to sports exclusively, at least for now, since GPS/Cell (the only way to get correct position quick) is massively draining and you don't get through the day with it unless the watch/band is way way bigger than the AW.
    We've been over this. You don't need cellular for GPS - the phone can provide quick fix data once per day or once per week over BT.

    GPS is no more of a power drain than listening to music. Doing both at the same time would present a challenge, but it would still last long enough unless you were at it for several hours. 

  • Reply 11 of 13
    hexclockhexclock Posts: 1,244member
    Call it the "Samsung Handcuff".  That's how it appears.
    I was going to say that it looks like a house arrest bracelet. 
    slprescott
  • Reply 12 of 13
    bestkeptsecretbestkeptsecret Posts: 4,265member

    It doesn't seem to be a good fit on any of the 3 hand models shown in the pic.

    Style may be subjective, but my Stainless Steel Apple Watch with the Milanese Loop looks more elegant than any of the fitness trackers/ smart watches currently available.

  • Reply 13 of 13
    foggyhillfoggyhill Posts: 4,767member
    larrya said:
    foggyhill said:
    This is the most fucking ugly thing I've ever seen.Beyond ugly, it's the next stage of ugliness : a new frontier
    .If Apple does a "gps version", it should be a separate one than existing models, one dedicated to sports exclusively, at least for now, since GPS/Cell (the only way to get correct position quick) is massively draining and you don't get through the day with it unless the watch/band is way way bigger than the AW.
    We've been over this. You don't need cellular for GPS - the phone can provide quick fix data once per day or once per week over BT.

    GPS is no more of a power drain than listening to music. Doing both at the same time would present a challenge, but it would still last long enough unless you were at it for several hours. 

    Hey, stop fracking lying,. Go away


Sign In or Register to comment.