Samsung's latest patents show smartwatches with round faces

Three new design patents awarded to Samsung on Tuesday by the USPTO, show rounded smartwatch faces. This is unlike the rectangular shape of the watch face on all of Sammy's current smartwatches. While there will be some who will accuse the company of ripping off the round watch face seen on the Motorola Moto 360, the patents were actually filed on March 15th, 2013, well before Motorola unveiled its Android powered timepiece.

The trio of watches include a camera on each of the three bracelets, that allows the device to respond to gestures. On the clasp for each model, is a port for plugging in a charger. The Samsung Galaxy Gear was the first of Samsung's smartwatches to be released. Originally powered by Android, in May, Samsung released an update that turned the watch into a Tizen powered timepiece. But this was not necessary with the Samsung Gear 2 and the Samsung Gear 2 Neo. Both of those smartwatches came out of the box powered by Tizen.

Last month, Samsung switched back to Android for the launch of the Samsung Gear Live, and powered the new model with Android Wear. That is a specific version of the platform designed for wearables. Like all of the other Samsung branded smartwatches that have been released, this model features a rectangular screen.

If Samsung does follow through on the just awarded patents, we could see a more rounded design on the manufacturer's next smartwatch. There are some who complain that a round screen will cut off words, or parts of an image that could be displayed in its entirety, on a rectangular screen. On the other hand, even though it has not been released, there is a large contingent of Moto 360 fans who love the round design of the smartwatch.


source: USPTO (1), (2), (3), MobileGeeks (translated) via AndroidCentral