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At the ongoing Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco, Google surprised a lot of us by announcing that Samsung has officially jumped into the Android Wear smartwatch bandwagon with Samsung Gear Live. The Gear Live, along with previous announced LG G Watch will be available to be ordered directly from Google Play Store (probably in US only for now) later today.
Surprisingly, Google stopped short of announcing the price of either of these smartwatches, possibly to let Samsung and LG announce it themselves. Both Gear Live and LG G watch have rectangular watch faces, unlike the circular one on Moto 360. Talking about Moto 360, it won’t be available for order today, but is planned for release later this summer.
Update: Samsung has announced that Gear Live will be priced at $199 and can be pre-ordered later today. It’ll be made available on retail stores like Best buy from July 9th.
The Gear Live looks a lot like the Galaxy Gear 2, which incidentally marked Samsung’s move away from Android to their own Tizen OS. But looks like the Korean giant is forced to get back to the Android fold possibly due to lack of interest for Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo smartwatches.
It’s still not clear if LG G watch and Samsung Gear Live work with all Android smartwatches or just their respective smartphones. Same with Moto 360 as well. Sadly, we saw only smartwatches being talked about at Google I/O. It’s obvious that Android Wear goes beyond smartwatches, but time hasn’t come for them yet.
Will you be ordering a LG G watch or a Galaxy Gear Live? Or will you wait for Moto 360 or (ahem) an iWatch later this summer? Let us know!
