A newly published patent for Samsung shows that the company is interested in making a smartwatch that can understand the wearer's gestures to activate commands.
The patents, which were released on Thursday but were filed in August last year, looks to be miles ahead of the technology that Samsung used in their poorly received Galaxy Gear smartwatch and newer Gear Fit version.
The patents showed a wearable watch-like device that is loaded with sensors, which are able to collect different kinds of information. The proposed smartwatch has a touchscreen display, with a tap on the smartwatch's bezel and a rub on its wristband also capable of receiving commands.
However, what would set the smartwatch apart from its competition such as Apple's iWatch and other Android Wear-based devices will be its ability to understand numeric, heuristic and pattern-based gestures through a built-in camera. Even wrist actions such as giving a thumbs-up sign or moving the fingers in a specific direction may be used to input commands.
The gestures will be processed by a "gesture priority decoder," which will decide which movements are the most important ones to recognize first. Processing can also be done by another device such as a Samsung smartphone that is wirelessly paired with the smartwatch.
Other features of Samsung's proposed smartwatch include a rotating ring for scrolling, object recognition and identification through the device's camera, operation of other electronic devices through wireless connections and foreign language translation.
With all these things going on with the proposed smartwatch, battery life will most likely take a hit. However, one of the patents mentions that the sensors of the device can be turned on or off, allowing the user to save the smartwatch's battery.
Apple's iWatch was discussed by the company's CEO Tim Cook in April at Apple's latest earnings call. Cook said that Apple is very close to launching the iWatch, but no definite dates have been set yet. Android Wear, on the other hand, will have its software development kit extended by Google to Android developers later this year, with developer previews already available.
Touchscreens on smartwatches are very limited because of the small size that they can occupy. Samsung's patents may be ambitious, but being able to develop even some of the proposed technology will propel wearable technology to greater heights. With Samsung already having a focus on gesture controls for other products such as televisions, along with its decision to utilize Android Wear, future Samsung smartwatches may develop as small do-it-all devices.
