Samsung’s line of Gear smartwatches have to date been only compatible with Samsung products. That is changing with the new Samsung Gear S2 that was formally introduced just ahead of IFA 2015. The new information surfaced today as part of the release of new developer tools including the Samsung Gear SDK as well as development guidelines and assets for the new Rotary UX, “which allows you to use the Rotary wheel to build new user experiences.”
The Samsung Gear S2 provides a truly mobile experience for your users and has been unlocked to work seamlessly with Android mobile devices running Android 4.4 and above.
There are a couple of caveats though. First, you will need a smartphone running Android 4.4 or higher and with at least 1.5 gigabytes of RAM. Second, expect some features not to work as they are Samsung specific (such as Samsung Pay) or because of API differences (the Samsung phone dialer is one example).
The move to make the Samsung Gear 2 available to a greater range of devices makes sense. Not only does Samsung stand to benefit from stronger sales but consumers looking for a new smartwatch now have another option worthy of their attention.
It remains to be seen if older Samsung Gear smartwatches will also become compatible with a wider assortment of Android smartphones with a future firmware update.
Source : AndroidCentral