Wearables: Samsung to Debut Android Wear Smartphone

Samsung will showcase a new Gear smartwatch based on Google’s (GOOG) Android Wear platform next week at the Google I/O 2014 developer conference in San Francisco, according to a CNET report.

Google first disclosed the Android-modified Wear OS platform in late March, announcing at the time that mobile makers Asus, HTC, LG, Motorola and Samsung would be its first OEMs to deliver associated devices to market. In addition to the Samsung Wear-based entry, LG and Motorola may also take the covers off new wearables at the I/O event as well, the CNET report said.

The Korean device maker reportedly has been tinkering with two versions of the Android Wear-based smartwatch—one equipped with its own mobile chips and another with a Qualcomm (QCOM) processor. At this point, the vendor hasn’t indicated which version it intends to debut at I/O. According to a CNET source, Samsung may distribute its Android Wear smartwatch to the 6,000 attendees at the event, which begins June 25.

Samsung told CNET that it’s “committed to relentless innovation and new products are always in development,” but wouldn’t comment on a new Wear-based Gear device. Still, if Samsung does come forward with the a Wear-based Gear smartwatch, it would add more glue to its Google relationship, whose ardor may have ebbed in the past year with the Korean manufacturer’s dabbling with Tizen open source OS devices.

Samsung officials previously have suggested the Wear platform was too energy-draining but in keeping with its strategy to bring multi-platform mobile devices to market, the vendor may believe its wearables continue to need the market lift Android provides.

And, with more information seeping out about Apple’s (AAPL) long-rumored smartwatch, Samsung is likely to amp up the volume on its wearables lineup, as it’s done in the past when its bitter rival moves closer to a new product launch.