Hasta La Gadget!

Samsung is indeed working on a smart watch, the company’s Executive Vice President of Mobile told Bloomberg in an interview today. “We are preparing products for the future, and the watch is definitely one of them,,” Hee told the publication in no uncertain terms, adding that between itself and Apple, the “issue here is who will first commercialize it so consumers can use it meaningfully.”

Hee provided no further details about what a Samsung smart watch would look like, what features it would offer consumers or when it would go on sale, but he did say that the South Korean company has been working on a watch product for “so long,” and patents back up that assertion. Samsung has patents related to wrist watch tech spanning nearly a decade, as Unwired View notes, covering various types of wearable phone designs.

In fact, Samsung has even produced some of its creations, including the S9110, a smartphone in the shape of a watch it actually shipped in 2009. In fact, Samsung created the first-even watch phone back in 1999, when it created the SPH-WP10. That predated the smartphone, of course, but it did indeed ship.

Bloomberg also reiterated that Apple plans to introduce its own smart watch design as early as this year, citing an anonymous source in what is likely a reference to an earlier report that said the same. The report also included information about what Apple’s watch might do, which includes displaying caller information and map data, as well as being able to make calls and track health-related information.

Samsung has created smart watch tech in the past, but this might be another case where Apple takes the tech and leads the way in terms of building a device that actually works with a user’s existing workflow, popularizing the concept before Samsung and others move to follow its lead. At any rate it’s definitely an area of renewed interest for the Korean electronics manufacturer.

As the race toward mainstream wearable computing heats up, watches are hot and smart watches are hotter.

In fact, word on the street is that Apple is working on a new smart watch that would integrate with its iCloud and iOS devices. But as it stands now, the majority of great “smart watches” available are coming from smaller companies.

We took a look at the Pebble, the Metawatch, and the Basis smart watches for an episode of Fly Or Die, to help you get a handle on which is best for you, if any at all.

To start, John and I both believe that the whole idea of a smart watch isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be. Sure, it’s nice to have a second channel for incoming information like texts and calls, but unfortunately the watch isn’t all that conducive to action (replies, answering calls, etc.).

Plus, watches are meant to be every day devices, and with the battery requirements of a smart watch (even a whole week, which is promised from the Pebble), remembering to plug in your wrist watch on a regular basis can grow tiring.

However, it’s hard to argue with the cool factor brought along with a smart watch. If, to you, that outweighs being not-quite-satisfied with the end-product, then we should move on to the compare and contrast section of this smart watch PSA.

The Pebble was a Kickstarter phenomena, thanks to its E-Paper display which gives the watch face a crisp, readable look at all times, even in direct sunlight. The Pebble also hooks into iOS and Android for email, text, and call notifications, and has customizable watch faces. If you find yourself focusing on the design aspect of a smart watch, you’re probably looking for the $150 Pebble.

The Metawatch comes out of Fossil, so it looks much more like a standard watch than either of the other options. It’s got a leather band and a metal/glass face. It feels heavier than the Pebble, but doesn’t have as crisp of a display. However, the Metawatch has an API that will let you send almost anything to the watch. This one’s for someone ready to get into the smart watch world but not ready to let go of the solid, classic build of a watch.

The Basis can’t really compete with the Pebble or the Metawatch, as it’s more of a quantified self device with a built-in clock. It measures motion, skin temperature, heart rate, calories burned, sleep patterns, and other physiological indicators, and connects to your phone via Bluetooth and dedicated apps. All in all, it’s a fine looking $200 device that’s much more suited to the fitness guru than the timepiece snob or the tech geek.

As for smart watches in general, John and I both believe they will have their time. We’re just not sure that time is today.

Pebble, the Kickstarter darling and connected smart watch, announced just yesterday that its product was now beginning to ship out to backers in limited quantities, but its iPhone app had yet to be approved. Today, the company announced to its Kickstarter backers that both the iPhone and Android apps are available now, which means they’ll be fully functional for users of both types of devices when they arrive at backer doors.

Of course, the apps won’t do anything on their own without any hardware to talk to, but at least the icon is very attractive, and it’s something to help soothe the pain of having to wait so long to actually get your hands on the Pebble itself. When you do get hardware, you’ll be able to update your Pebble software, install and remove custom watch faces for the device, and also send test messages to the watch for troubleshooting purposes. The Pebble team says that they’ll be updating the free app on a regular basis, presumably with more features.

According to Chinese gadget news site Tech.163, Apple may be in the process of developing its own smart watch that connects to your Apple devices via Bluetooth. Based on the report, Intel will be working with Apple to create the smart watch, with a 1.5-inch PMOLED display made by RiTDisplay with ITO-coated glass.

Apple has long had a small hold on the watch market thanks to its iPod nano, which is easily attached to a wrist band turning it into a full-functioning watch.

Recently, however, smart watches have grown increasingly popular. Sony, for instance, has a new offering called the Smart Watch, and we can’t forget how Pebble blew up Kickstarter with it’s e-paper Smart Watch that connects to iOS and Android devices.

Users are looking for more and more connectivity, and as it stands now, an iPod nano with no Bluetooth connection to a user’s phone or tablet is becoming less attractive.

Throughout the past year, there have been many questions over when and if Apple will join the Smart Watch race. Today marks one of the first semi-substantiated leaks.

However, I’m approaching this with a hefty helping of salt. Even if Apple is making a watch, it will be quite a while before we see any real evidence of it. Plus, there’s no proven market for smart watches yet, even with the success of Pebble and MetaWatch.

According to the source, Apple will launch this smart watch later next year.

Whether or not that’s true, this will likely excite multitudes of geeks who clearly see value in such a device, as proven by Pebble and others.

It won’t be revolutionary, per se — many have already entered the smart watch space — but Apple has a knack for making niche devices mainstream. Just take a look at tablets. Before the iPad, the main question on everyone’s mind was whether or not tablets would be used in everyday life.

If this rumor proves true, Apple is probably doing the same thing it did with tablets to the idea of the watch. Low-power Bluetooth 4.0 makes wearable connected tech more practical, and with Apple’s design touch and software ecosystem, a smart watch could appeal to more than just gadget geeks.

Casio announced this week that its G-Shock watch with low-power Bluetooth 4.0 is shipping out to U.S. retailers now, after a delay of a year or more owing to a number of issues, including flooding in Thailand. As far as smart watches go, the Casio is a little barebones: it syncs with iPhone to provide alerts for inbound emails and phone calls, and also helps you find misplaced devices by activating their ring and vibrate functions.

The minimal features may seem a little paltry when you hold the Casio G-Shock up to standards set by smart watches like the MetaWatch Strata or the Pebble, which both offer plenty of added features via apps. But Casio’s implementation actually has a lot going for it. First of all, since it’s only using Bluetooth 4.0 and doing relatively little in terms of back-and-forth communication and transfer of data, Casio says battery life will still be at around two years, given 12 hours of Bluetooth connectivity per day.

But energy efficiency isn’t the only advantage. Casio’s smart features are well-chosen: email and call notices are practical, as are locating features, and a function that alerts a user when the phone gets out of range of the watch. It also adjusts time zones automatically based on location information fed by the iPhone. Additional features that the MetaWatch Strata provides, including weather, stocks, calendar info and more just ends up being hard to read on a tiny screen, and frustrating to sync and maintain. Plus transferring all that info means battery on both the phone and watch end of the equation suffers.

Click to view slideshow.

A kitchen sink approach to wearable computing just seems premature to me, after some experience using the MetaWatch for a little while now. Casio’s strategy of introducing a few logical features and seeing how things go, without sacrificing the things that make watches useful to begin with (i.e., a battery that doesn’t need charging every few days), seems like the way to go for now.

Casio’s Bluetooth G-Shock comes in black, gray blue, brown and white, offers 200M water resistance and shock protection, and has a number of other standard watch features including alarms, stopwatch, a countdown timer and more. Those features are smarter on a watch than many of the so-called “smart” features being pushed by others. The watch sells for $180, and is available through select U.S. retailers including Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s and more, and online at G-Shock’s website. Note that since it uses Bluetooth 4.0, only iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 owners need apply.