Earlier, we reported that Samsung Electronics has the highest number of patents in the wearable category. Staying true to that reputation, the company has filed two more patents with WIPO for its Gear smartwatches. The patents got published at the end of 2017.
Watch strap with an integrated battery
The first patent filed by the company shows a watch strap that includes a battery. The battery will have a specific width, thickness and length and will be fitted into a curved battery bracket. The curved bracket will be placed on the watch strap well enough to go unnoticed by the user. This technology can be used to integrate batteries in both the straps of a smartwatch. This will free a substantial amount of space in the watch case, that can be utilised for other added features.
Samsung says that the battery can be placed in watch straps made of any materials including leather, rubber or fibre material. This literally means that Samsung can still develop different types of watch straps with an integrated battery.
New way of operating smartwatches
The second patent by Samsung hints at added features on already existing Samsung smartwatches. It shows a sort of rotatable ring similar to the rotating bezel on the current crop of Samsung smartwatches. On rotating the ring, the watch displays the menu items on an extra sub-display on the side of the device.
In addition, the latest patent by Samsung also talks of an integrated camera sensor, fingerprint sensor, lighting sensor, proximity sensor, heart rate sensor and infrared sensor in the smartwatch.
We haven’t seen cameras in Samsung smartwatches since the Galaxy Gear 2, released back in 2014. However, Samsung might be tempted to add one in the future Gear smartwatches, making them even more powerful standalone devices. The same goes for a fingerprint sensor too that Samsung was rumored to be working on for smartwatches since 2014. But no Gear watch to date has come equipped with such sensors. However, Samsung once again seems to have something in mind regarding this. As Samsung Pay is already available in Gear S3, the addition of fingerprint sensor would just make things better.
Samsung Gear S4?
Whether and when Samsung will incorporate these features in its smartwatch is hard to say. However, with Samsung filing a patent for all these features prior to the announcement of Gear S4, expected to be announced in early in 2018, makes for a mouth-watering wait for the smartwatch.
