Samsung Gear S3 arriving in November and more

A look back at the rumours and murmurs from the week in wearable tech
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And finally is our round-up of all the wearable tech news you might have surfed past in the last seven days of internetting.

Have a browse, a read and a look at this week's collection of intriguing news blips and wearable rumours from around the web.

Samsung Gear S3 coming soon

Samsung Gear S3 arriving in November and more

The Samsung Gear S3 is landing next month. There had been reports that, after the Note 7 clusterfuck, Samsung was slowing down its 2016 launch plans but, not so... pre-orders have opened up (in the UK, at least) for the smartwatch that was announced at IFA 2016 back in September.

Both the Frontier and the Classic models cost £349 and shipping is set for 11 November.

Aside from a few cosmetic aspects, there isn't a major difference between the Gear S3 options, aside from the LTE offering and a small weight difference. The Classic Gear S3 is much more refined than its counterpart. And compared to its predecessor, it's ditched the smooth, plastic looking bezel, and opted for a stainless steel body with a ridged, brushed metal rotating bezel. It also has two rounded buttons on the right side.

But we're more excited about the Gear S4

Sure, we're pumped that we'll soon have an S3 on our wrist but the S4 could be a much more exciting prospect. TechCrunch has it good authority that the Korean company has agreed to acquire Viv - an AI and assistant system co-founded by the chaps who developed Siri.

Described as "a more extensible, powerful version of Siri", Viv says its AI is capable of writing its own code to accomplish new tasks.

With Apple, Amazon and Microsoft making big waves in the AI assistant space, it's about time Samsung stepped up.

Eve Light Switch turns on

Samsung Gear S3 arriving in November and more

Elgato unveiled the Eve Light Switch this week, "the world's first light switch with HomeKit tech".

The Eve Light Switch replaces any single pole switch, using Bluetooth LE rather than a hub or a bridge and costs $49.95.

"Controlling your light bulbs using Siri is a compelling experience, but up until now, you were out of luck if they were switched off at the wall," said Markus Fest, General Manager of Elgato. "By integrating Bluetooth low energy technology into the wall switch itself, Eve Light Switch is the first HomeKit-enabled product that provides seamless access to your lights."

Android Wear 2.0 app installation issues

Samsung Gear S3 arriving in November and more

We already knew that Android Wear 2.0 would mean users could install apps directly onto their Google-powered smartwatches. What we didn't know was that was the only way to install apps with the next-gen OS.

"A Wear 2.0 user must visit the Play Store on their watch to install apps," explains a Google's Android Developer Advocate. "There is no auto-install like on Wear 1.X. Wear 2.0 apps get full network access and can be installed completely separately from the handheld app so the focus is much more on standalone Wear apps than the handheld centric 1.X Wear apps."

It's not great because it means that if you want to benefit from apps where both smartwatch and smartphone functionality are combined (such as RunKeeper) you'd have to install two separate apps.




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Wareable Media Group co-CEO Paul launched Wareable with James Stables in 2014, after working for a variety of the UK's biggest and best consumer tech publications including Pocket-lint, Forbes, Electric Pig, Tech Digest, What Laptop, T3 and has been a judge for the TechRadar Awards. 

Prior to founding Wareable, and subsequently The Ambient, he was the senior editor of MSN Tech and has written for a range of publications.


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