An eagle-eyed app developer, who will remain nameless, has spotted a couple of Interesting names and details for the new devices in the Samsung developer device list. This can be found on the Samsung developer site but you need to have an account and be logged in. New Samsung wearables with be called FRESH and WISE. New details are that both of these devices will be available in BT and LTE variants and will be available in two sizes, small and large. These sizes could be 40mm and 44mm and are expected to ship with model numbers SM-R86x and SM-R87x.
Normally, Samsung will not list devices sizes on the app developer list, as you can see above, so this could refer to the devices having different screen resolutions that App developers have to be mindful of.
Are these Wear OS devices?
Interesting the name GALAXY has been dropped as part of the naming convention. Traditionally we would have expected “Galaxy Watch Active” etc. But now, with the devices are being called FRESH and WISE, this could signal Samsung’s rumoured departure from Tizen to Google’s Wear OS?
Samsung has preferred its own Tizen OS, mainly due to its strengths in battery life, but has long struggled with the lack of a robust app ecosystem for its wearables. After many years of development and rebranding Wear OS now provides better battery life and it may be a far more attractive proposition for Samsung. With Wear OS comes the possibility of collaboration with Google, and in these uncertain tech times, that can only be a good thing.
We shouldn’t have long to wait as we were expecting a 2021 Q2 release for these devices.
