Galaxy Gear Not a Flop After-all; 800,000 Units Shipped to Retailers

[dgstorm]

Despite poor reviews and an unappealing price-tag, it appears that Samsung's Galaxy Gear smartwatch is turning out to be a solid success, relatively speaking. According to a couple of reports, Samsung has already shipped 800,000 units to retailers world-wide. Additionally, 50,000 units have already been actually sold to customers in South Korea alone. This has far surpassed Samsung's own initial expectations. These numbers also put it far ahead of competing devices from Pebble and Sony.

Samsung issued a statement regarding the surprise success of the device, "It's the most sold wearable watch available in the market place...and we plan to expand its availability by expanding mobile devices that work with the Gear."

One of the reasons for the increased success of the device can easily be attributed to incentive programs to help push the device out the door. This includes bundling it with the Galaxy Note 3, and there were even some UK carriers who offered it for free if customers purchased the 5.7-inch smartphone on a two-year contract.

Of course, there have also been reports that up to 30% of consumers in the U.S. have returned the device, which does not bode well for its future sales. It will be interesting to see how the sell-through numbers match up with the shipping to retail numbers when everything is finally tallied. Regardless, shipping out 800,000 units to retailers in only 2 months is nothing to scoff at. This would mean that retail shipments of the Samsung Galaxy Gear could be on par or better than the Moto X.

Source: Engadget

 

[Tom T]

This device isn't going to appeal to everyone but the short time I've owned it I've been very impressed. I haven't got the 4.3 update to my Galaxy Note 2 yet but most functions work with 4.1.2. I will hold off on too much praise or criticism until I get 4.3 but so far so good.
Maybe the biggest weakness of the watch is its inability to access the Internet on its own even while tethered to the phone. On the other hand this is a reasonably powerful Android device and you can sideload apps, like running alternative launchers and even games. I saw a report of someone running Candy Crush Saga and although I've never played the game before I decided to try it and sure enough it runs and is even playable.
There are already alternative roms out and there is some success getting the watch to pair with non Samsung devices.
Interestingly the watch itself runs Android 4.2.2.
A couple other things I've noticed, first the battery life is much better than some reviews would have you believe. This is another thing I'll have to wait on to be certain as again I don't have use of all features yet. Second the camera takes surprisingly good pictures and video, Better than most my tabletsand the seamless transfer to my phone is very cool.

 

[Tom T]

I should note that I'm not new to wearable computing and this fascination of mine might influence my acceptance of devices like this. Years ago there was a device, the Ruputer, developed and sold in Japan, that was way ahead of its time. Intel based computer with a joystick type of input worn on the wrist. I followed this with great interest and a company adapted it for the US market, sold as the OnHand wrist computer. Back in the 90's, it used a button battery with about 4 hours of useful life per, not cheap to power. It was very cool though. I still have this, it accompanies my working Newton and HP LS as some of my favorite, if not the most productive (except in the case of the HP which came with Lotus 123 installed and was an amazing tool in comparison to the Palm computers and Windows CE devices of the time (not to knock either, they were both interesting and in the case of the Palm game changing)).
Getting back to the point, if there is one, this Samsung is a decent progression of an ever more portable and convenient computing and communication experience.

 

[AECRADIO1]

While I have a passing interest in such toys, I know almost nothing about its capabilities, or if it even has WiFi, or possibly Bluetooth.
WiFi makes sense, and Bluetooth as an afterthought.
I doubt I would even consider such a device to play even the simplest games on, as the screen will probably cause some form of retina damage from squinting at it for long periods of time.
I think I will do a little research into this, and find out what it can and can not do.
I hope they open it up for use with other devices, that surely would expand their market share by leaps and bounds.
There could be a lot of useful applications for this 'watch', and I can come up with a host of remote control ideas for home automation, vehicle theft deterrent and security control.
Not to mention use as a baby monitor, a pulse oximeter ( with appropriate sensors), as well as a wrist-worn security alert for home video applications.