I have now been wearing a Samsung Gear 2 Smartwatch for close to a week, so I feel that it is now time to write some initial thoughts. One of things that particularly caught my attention about the Gear 2 smartwatch is that it runs the Tizen operating system. I used to write code for my Nokia N900 which ran a predecessor of Tizen, so the idea of running a Linux based operating system on a smartwatch especially caught my attention.

However, I’ll aspects about Tizen for a later post. The upside is that it may be a much better, more open operating system. The downside is that it appears locked down, at least right now, and setting up the development environment is not as easy as I would like.

I am also interested in the smartwatch as another player in the rapidly growing wearable computing field. I’ve been wearing Google Glass for nearly a year now, and I continue to wear it at the same time as I wear Gear 2. One of the nicest features of both of these devices is the more instantaneous notification than a smartphone. When a notification comes in, glance up for Glass, glance at your wrist for Gear 2, or pull your smartphone out of your pocket, pick it up off the desk, or whatever.

On Glass, I get notifications about twitter, text messages, various news sources and gmail. Gears gives me access to corporate email and text messages. I’m starting to experiment with other notifications. They look promising. If you want a device for quicker notifications, Gears 2 seems to be a good way to go.

Of course, being a digital omnivore, I can easily imagine continuing to wear Glass and Gears at the same time. Ideally, I’d love to pair Glass with one of my phones and Gears with the other. Unfortunately, Glass requires at least Android 4.0.3 and Gears requires Samsung devices. I have a Samsung G4 and an HTC Insight, running 2.3.0. So, for the time being, Glass and Gear are both linked to my G4. When I get a chance, I will see if I can upgrade the HTC to Android 4 and see if I can connect it to Glass.

What differentiates Gears 2, from Gears 2 Neo and Gears 2 Fit is the camera. However, this is a 1.9 megapixel camera. These days, it seems like a 5 megapixel camera is the minimum, so I’ve been pretty unimpressed with the camera on Gears.

The Gears 2 Neo and Gears 2 Fit cost $200 and seem to be competing more with the Fitbit and related fitness bands. They cost twice as much as the competitors, and the camera makes it cost three times as much.

I did try the Nike Fuelband at one point and was very unimpressed. The fitness apps on the Gears 2 are nice. I’ve walked 6483 steps today. Well short of the 10,000 steps I’d like to be doing, but not bad. In fact, I’ve been over 6000 steps every day since I got the Gears. One thing that I wish it had was some way to download this information. There is a separate Exercise application, that doesn’t seem to share data, but does use the heart rate monitor. There is also a Sleep App which tracks how long and well you are sleeping. So far, no great insights from it, but it seems okay. It is supposed to be water resistant down to a meter deep. So, I’ve wondered about using it to track swimming, but I haven’t found an app for that. On Gears 2, you can share data from Gears Fitness apps as an image to social media. A nice start.

Ideally, I’d like to see patient portal type apps connect with Gears and that may be another test soon.

I have tried installing a few other apps on gears, but nothing has really caught my attention or worked nicely for me. The QR code reader seemed like a good idea, but hasn’t worked properly yet and the Facebook Quick View app seems flakey.

For me, the battery has lasted pretty well, I suspect it would run for two days between charges at the rate I’m using it right now. It recharges pretty quickly. I charge it while I shower and eat breakfast.

All in all, it is interesting enough for me to continue to wear regularly, experiment with, and explore development on. More later…