Samsung’s original S Band, announced as an accessory for the Galaxy S4, never made it to market, but that hasn’t stopped the company from working on a successor to the S Band, which will be released a fitness accessory for the Galaxy S5 and other devices in the coming months. We’ve received a few slides from the sales guide for the Galaxy S5 that shows the new S Band in all its glory (the guide itself seems to show a Galaxy S4, which is how Samsung keeps things under wraps), revealing the much improved design that’s similar to that of the Gear Fit, Samsung’s beautiful fitness tracker that was unveiled at Unpacked 5.
Like the S Band from last year, the new S Band is a fitness tracker without a display, meaning it will act only as a sensor, with all info and tracking details visible on the paired smartphone on the Activity Tracker app and the new S Health app that debuts on the Galaxy S5. Apart from tracking things like steps taken and calories burned, the S Band will also have a sleep monitoring feature – it remains to be seen if it will only monitor simple things like the duration of sleep or how many times the user was restless or woke up, or go further by breaking down sleep time into deep and light stages.
The S Band will also offer simple functions like notifying users of any calls or messages they might have received on their phones, and an inbuilt alarm will make the tracker vibrate and flash an LED if it loses its Bluetooth connection with the paired smartphone. Like the Gear Fit, the new S Band will have interchangeable straps (with white, yellow, orange and grey color options) that can be easily swapped by band from one strap with a simple pull and putting it into another.
It’s a simple and minimal design as Samsung puts it, and looks better than the company’s original vaporware S Band. It should be compatible with both new and existing Samsung devices, though it will require an update to version 3.0 of S Health (which will come preloaded on all 2014 flagships.) Details like release date and pricing remain a mystery at the moment – hopefully, the new S Band will manage to see the light of day, as it could be a great option for the fitness bugs that aren’t looking for anything as fancy as a smartwatch.
