Two things we know about WebOS kernel: it sips power and it runs on anything (which means the 1.2GHz Snapdragon 400 is overkill)
That would make sense if it IS WebOS, but it's unfortunately unlikely :( I can't imagine the engineering that would have to go into bringing a 3 year old OS up to speed: LTE modem driver, new bluetooth stack, NFC backend--which was technically in WebOS 3.0.5 but never finished, drivers for heart rate and various other sensors, not to mention optimizations.
But what a great example this would be to showcase and revive WebOS.
The Open webOS project has been keeping up on this, though. They have methods for supporting Android drivers. But they have nothing near a production OS, it's buggy and doesn't even run well on the couple pieces of hardware it does support. It needs software updates, webOS never actually supported HTML5, that only caught on big after webOS already died. They ported WebKit into a new browser, but it needs a newer version of QT than is currently built into the OS, so that's the next step. There's just a lot of work to be done.
Of all the mobile operating systems, it is well known that android devices have the worst battery life, whether standby or not. I'm not looking to download task killers to get 10 more minutes out of an android device/watch
I agree. Even Nexus and "pure Android" devices have uncompetitive battery life.
WebOS didn't require turning off sync to improve battery life. Synergy simply optimized sync/push schedules when the modem was active doing other things.
Not necessarily so. Even proprietary OS, if they have open APIs and a nice IDE to develop from using standard Eclipse tools, then it could be just as good as Android Wear. The issue of Wear is the slow evolution and that Google putting strong controls/restrictions on it. The people in Google are NOT experts in wearables. Just look at Garmin and their products. Pretty darn good and all proprietary OS yet open enough on the APIs for apps in Android and (possibly IOS) to interacted with almost full fidelity with the watch. If you take a look at cheap China-made generic smartwatches, they are pretty good in the latest incarnation. It is not difficult to carve out all those features with dozens of products already out there having similar and sometimes identical feature sets. So bravo LG. You are going the opposite way that Sony has done!.
I have an LG G2 as a personal phone and a Motorola Moto X as a business phone. The moto is much closer to stock Android, and significantly less useful. The LG skin on Android adds a lot useful features and is just organized better.
Based on this experience, and pas experiences with HTC and Samsung skins, I no longer look at "stock Android" as a good thing. It's decidedly not.
Props to Stephen on this one by bolding the differences of the new model on the table, it really is a nice touch. More to the point, I really do like the styling on this model, but without a frame of reference it is really difficult to get a feel for its size.
By supporting only LTE-Voice (and not supporting 3G-Voice), this watch probably won't travel from continent to continent very well. The benefit of this arrangement is probably better battery life, but still...
Not true. I don't know who you figure will be buying this. But the price should be ok. As far as bulk goes, don't you know that all watches are getting bigger and heavier? I'm seeing watches that are .75" thick and close to 2" in diameter.
I worked an event a couple of months ago, talking one on one with hundreds of people, and was surprised at how huge regular watches have gotten. Smart-watches are much thinner than the current fashion.
This isn't Apple we're talking about here. The Koreans have long thrown in everything + the kitchen sink for the same or less than Apple charges for inferior specs. The Galaxy S3 vs the iPhone 4S/5 is a good example. Samsung had LTE, NFC, larger/higher res screen and numerous other technologies implemented before Apple, and they charged $100 less MSRP.
Anyone else here who thinks it would be nice for them to put the bigger battery and 1GB RAM in the non-LTE one as well? I couldn't care less about my watch being a phone, but more battery and less restrictive hardware are both good things.
I just want an Android Wear device with a round display, either OLED or e-ink, and a large enough battery to get me through two normal days (basically allowing for one night of forgetting to charge it). A near doubling of the battery size on the non-LTE model would put it pretty close to ticking all my boxes.
Dear AnandTech: consider compiling a data base of component (chip, etc) suppliers of wearables. This is a hot segment in the global equity markets right now. Would be good for your business, and for researchers like me too.
Maybe Google hasn't introduced them to Wear as the actual UX hasn't been worked out to be usable...LG and esp Samsung do have a habit of shoving in features and forgetting about that part...on a watch is even more important that the features are useable.
Well s perfect example is Sony SmartWatch 3. It has NFC, Wifi and GPS, These things Wear still does not support!. Huh?!, if coding that hard, or coders in Google are idiots as Linus Travals has said before ?. For such a scaled down OS, it has to be easier to get primitive functions working below the API level at the driver level. There arent's any patent restrictions on such code as they are standardized. Even can be custom tuned to be almost perfect by now. Still we are not seeing it. Google must be waiting for a strong rival like Apple to release something before they get off their butts to really work!. Its a crying shame for such a large company supposely having "unlimited" resources at its disposal.
As an owner of a Gear 2, and a Gear S I can say that with the Gear 2, the battery life was kind of OK - couple of days mostly. The Gear S, hmm, not so good - a full day if you are lucky. I think it is 300mAh in capacity.
Now, 700mAh sounds amazing, it really does - and it'll need it.
With my Gear S being purchased for running (the GPS you see), I can say that running the GPS, and the music player (bluetooth) ,whilst running, can drain the battery by ~35 to 40% with an hours' use.
But that round screen... Samsung has it right with the big beautiful portrait-type screen. It is actually useful.
However, the inclusion of buttons on the side would be a God-send. why do I have to swipe for everything, when we've had buttons on watches forever? In addtion, my motorcycle-racing-style jacket is enough to press the screen often enough so as to make unintended calls. I have called abroad (at bad hours too), and rang my previously-dialled numbers on a couple more occasions too. I'd like to see it where you couldn't wake the device, without first pressing a side button.
And when running, it would be better if nothing could cancel the running program, save for a side button start / stop too. I've exited my running tracker whilst trying to change music. Not good. Side buttons again.
Furthermore - I care not a jot for LTE in a device like this, though it would not hurt connectivity & some functionality I guess, but I use 2G mode on my Gear S, so as to increase battery life.
Finally, the ability to use a normal watch strap cannot be underestimated, my Gear 2 can, but the Gear S, nope. And the watch strap on the Gear S is starting to come away on the top left, which may prompt a return to the Samsung store for an exchange.
I don't think they could manage a 70% capacity increase just by widening the base. Plus the device render looks like it has the same shape as their other watches.
Also I have to say this render looks pretty good. Attractive even.
Not another proprietary platform that'll exist for one or two devices before being canned. Pebble's strength is it was first to the smartwatch game and has open APIs and a big following of third party developers. Android Wear survives because of Google's backing and the Apple Watch will leverage Apple's existing development and distribution platform.
Would app developers learn LG's new language and environment just to target a few thousand units? And what happens when LG kills it for Web OS or Android Wear?
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quiksilvr - Thursday, February 26, 2015 - link
I was super excited until I saw "LG Custom Android" and then I sighed and moved on...Stephen Barrett - Thursday, February 26, 2015 - link
Turns out it might not be android. It is custom though. Updated the articlequiksilvr - Thursday, February 26, 2015 - link
That's even worse!JeffFlanagan - Thursday, February 26, 2015 - link
Not if it saves power it isn't. We don't need to run phone apps on our watches.Samus - Thursday, February 26, 2015 - link
Two things we know about WebOS kernel: it sips power and it runs on anything (which means the 1.2GHz Snapdragon 400 is overkill)That would make sense if it IS WebOS, but it's unfortunately unlikely :( I can't imagine the engineering that would have to go into bringing a 3 year old OS up to speed: LTE modem driver, new bluetooth stack, NFC backend--which was technically in WebOS 3.0.5 but never finished, drivers for heart rate and various other sensors, not to mention optimizations.
But what a great example this would be to showcase and revive WebOS.
modulusshift - Friday, February 27, 2015 - link
The Open webOS project has been keeping up on this, though. They have methods for supporting Android drivers. But they have nothing near a production OS, it's buggy and doesn't even run well on the couple pieces of hardware it does support. It needs software updates, webOS never actually supported HTML5, that only caught on big after webOS already died. They ported WebKit into a new browser, but it needs a newer version of QT than is currently built into the OS, so that's the next step. There's just a lot of work to be done.sprockkets - Friday, February 27, 2015 - link
WebOS runs Linux.That, and Android has great standby life...when you treat it like it isn't a smartphone and turn off sync.
lizardsquad - Friday, February 27, 2015 - link
Of all the mobile operating systems, it is well known that android devices have the worst battery life, whether standby or not. I'm not looking to download task killers to get 10 more minutes out of an android device/watchSamus - Saturday, February 28, 2015 - link
I agree. Even Nexus and "pure Android" devices have uncompetitive battery life.WebOS didn't require turning off sync to improve battery life. Synergy simply optimized sync/push schedules when the modem was active doing other things.
fteoath64 - Saturday, February 28, 2015 - link
Not necessarily so. Even proprietary OS, if they have open APIs and a nice IDE to develop from using standard Eclipse tools, then it could be just as good as Android Wear. The issue of Wear is the slow evolution and that Google putting strong controls/restrictions on it. The people in Google are NOT experts in wearables. Just look at Garmin and their products. Pretty darn good and all proprietary OS yet open enough on the APIs for apps in Android and (possibly IOS) to interacted with almost full fidelity with the watch.If you take a look at cheap China-made generic smartwatches, they are pretty good in the latest incarnation. It is not difficult to carve out all those features with dozens of products already out there having similar and sometimes identical feature sets. So bravo LG. You are going the opposite way that Sony has done!.
Hrel - Friday, February 27, 2015 - link
I have an LG G2 as a personal phone and a Motorola Moto X as a business phone. The moto is much closer to stock Android, and significantly less useful. The LG skin on Android adds a lot useful features and is just organized better.Based on this experience, and pas experiences with HTC and Samsung skins, I no longer look at "stock Android" as a good thing. It's decidedly not.
nismotigerwvu - Thursday, February 26, 2015 - link
Props to Stephen on this one by bolding the differences of the new model on the table, it really is a nice touch. More to the point, I really do like the styling on this model, but without a frame of reference it is really difficult to get a feel for its size.mkozakewich - Thursday, February 26, 2015 - link
Needs banana for scale.ant6n - Thursday, February 26, 2015 - link
needs weighthrrmph - Thursday, February 26, 2015 - link
By supporting only LTE-Voice (and not supporting 3G-Voice), this watch probably won't travel from continent to continent very well. The benefit of this arrangement is probably better battery life, but still...toyotabedzrock - Thursday, February 26, 2015 - link
They are falling victim to the include everything idea. It is too much for a watch and no one willing to pay that price will want the bulk.melgross - Thursday, February 26, 2015 - link
Not true. I don't know who you figure will be buying this. But the price should be ok. As far as bulk goes, don't you know that all watches are getting bigger and heavier? I'm seeing watches that are .75" thick and close to 2" in diameter.JeffFlanagan - Thursday, February 26, 2015 - link
I worked an event a couple of months ago, talking one on one with hundreds of people, and was surprised at how huge regular watches have gotten. Smart-watches are much thinner than the current fashion.Samus - Thursday, February 26, 2015 - link
This isn't Apple we're talking about here. The Koreans have long thrown in everything + the kitchen sink for the same or less than Apple charges for inferior specs. The Galaxy S3 vs the iPhone 4S/5 is a good example. Samsung had LTE, NFC, larger/higher res screen and numerous other technologies implemented before Apple, and they charged $100 less MSRP.secretmanofagent - Thursday, February 26, 2015 - link
The update is actually incorrect, there has been a WebOS wearable shown before: http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/7/7511883/lg-webos-...It was shown at CES2015 and designed for use with an Audi. It's unclear if it has LTE capabilities, though.
wolrah - Thursday, February 26, 2015 - link
Anyone else here who thinks it would be nice for them to put the bigger battery and 1GB RAM in the non-LTE one as well? I couldn't care less about my watch being a phone, but more battery and less restrictive hardware are both good things.I just want an Android Wear device with a round display, either OLED or e-ink, and a large enough battery to get me through two normal days (basically allowing for one night of forgetting to charge it). A near doubling of the battery size on the non-LTE model would put it pretty close to ticking all my boxes.
diddlydoo - Thursday, February 26, 2015 - link
Dear AnandTech: consider compiling a data base of component (chip, etc) suppliers of wearables. This is a hot segment in the global equity markets right now. Would be good for your business, and for researchers like me too.fluxtatic - Friday, February 27, 2015 - link
Not much of a researcher if you're trying to get AT to do the heavy lifting for you, no?FunBunny2 - Friday, February 27, 2015 - link
:) :) ^^cjb110 - Friday, February 27, 2015 - link
Maybe Google hasn't introduced them to Wear as the actual UX hasn't been worked out to be usable...LG and esp Samsung do have a habit of shoving in features and forgetting about that part...on a watch is even more important that the features are useable.fteoath64 - Saturday, February 28, 2015 - link
Well s perfect example is Sony SmartWatch 3. It has NFC, Wifi and GPS, These things Wear still does not support!. Huh?!, if coding that hard, or coders in Google are idiots as Linus Travals has said before ?. For such a scaled down OS, it has to be easier to get primitive functions working below the API level at the driver level. There arent's any patent restrictions on such code as they are standardized. Even can be custom tuned to be almost perfect by now. Still we are not seeing it.Google must be waiting for a strong rival like Apple to release something before they get off their butts to really work!. Its a crying shame for such a large company supposely having "unlimited" resources at its disposal.
sonicmerlin - Saturday, February 28, 2015 - link
They're waiting to copy the Apple Watch. Just like they'll probably do to MS's Hololens.Pissedoffyouth - Friday, February 27, 2015 - link
"the most interesting part of this announcement is that LG has ditched Andorid Wear "The word you're after is Android. A few articles have had shocking spellcheck lately.
Notmyusualid - Friday, February 27, 2015 - link
As an owner of a Gear 2, and a Gear S I can say that with the Gear 2, the battery life was kind of OK - couple of days mostly. The Gear S, hmm, not so good - a full day if you are lucky. I think it is 300mAh in capacity.Now, 700mAh sounds amazing, it really does - and it'll need it.
With my Gear S being purchased for running (the GPS you see), I can say that running the GPS, and the music player (bluetooth) ,whilst running, can drain the battery by ~35 to 40% with an hours' use.
But that round screen... Samsung has it right with the big beautiful portrait-type screen. It is actually useful.
However, the inclusion of buttons on the side would be a God-send. why do I have to swipe for everything, when we've had buttons on watches forever? In addtion, my motorcycle-racing-style jacket is enough to press the screen often enough so as to make unintended calls. I have called abroad (at bad hours too), and rang my previously-dialled numbers on a couple more occasions too. I'd like to see it where you couldn't wake the device, without first pressing a side button.
And when running, it would be better if nothing could cancel the running program, save for a side button start / stop too. I've exited my running tracker whilst trying to change music. Not good. Side buttons again.
Furthermore - I care not a jot for LTE in a device like this, though it would not hurt connectivity & some functionality I guess, but I use 2G mode on my Gear S, so as to increase battery life.
Finally, the ability to use a normal watch strap cannot be underestimated, my Gear 2 can, but the Gear S, nope. And the watch strap on the Gear S is starting to come away on the top left, which may prompt a return to the Samsung store for an exchange.
Bring on the new wearables I say...
sonicmerlin - Saturday, February 28, 2015 - link
That's a huge battery capacity increase. How did they do that? Are they using new tech? Maybe the solid state batteries from SolidEnergy?peterfares - Sunday, March 1, 2015 - link
Or maybe juts the much larger base section?sonicmerlin - Sunday, March 1, 2015 - link
I don't think they could manage a 70% capacity increase just by widening the base. Plus the device render looks like it has the same shape as their other watches.Also I have to say this render looks pretty good. Attractive even.
serendip - Sunday, March 1, 2015 - link
Not another proprietary platform that'll exist for one or two devices before being canned. Pebble's strength is it was first to the smartwatch game and has open APIs and a big following of third party developers. Android Wear survives because of Google's backing and the Apple Watch will leverage Apple's existing development and distribution platform.Would app developers learn LG's new language and environment just to target a few thousand units? And what happens when LG kills it for Web OS or Android Wear?
Voice Navigation - Saturday, July 25, 2020 - link
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