Samsung Electronics unveiled some new mobile products and a new marketing campaign, called A Galaxy of Possibility, which lived up to its name with a live musical performance by Gwen Stefani, among others, outside the company’s consumer showroom and offices in Manhattan’s Meatpacking district.
The company will promote a Move with Galaxy collection consisting of the new Gear Fit2 fitness band, the fitness-oriented Gear Icon X Bluetooth ear buds with built-in fitness-tracking sensors, and the waterproof Galaxy S7 Edge smartphone.
Other collections were also announced, and the campaign will roll out soon, the company said.
The Icon X, due in the third quarter at a targeted $199, features embedded memory to store music. An embedded heart-rate monitor and accelerometer track hear rate, distance, speed and calories consumed. The information is relayed via voice to the user. Icon X also sends the data via Bluetooth to the company’s S Health app on Samsung smartphones. Capacitive-touch controls are on the ear buds.
To ensure the left and right music channels are in sync, copies of each song are stored in each ear bud, said Shoneel Kolhatkar, Samsung Electronics product strategy and planning senior director. Music is transferred to both ear buds when they are placed in their charging case and connected via USB to a computer or phone.
For its part, the Tizen-OS-based Gear Fit2, available now at $179 includes built-in GPS to deliver more accurate step counting and distance tracking, said Kolhatkar. Other enhancements include the ability to display running progress on a map without a phone being nearby.
Also new is an integrated Spotify app to stream music from the Cloud via a Bluetooth-connected phone.
The Fit2 features a narrower bezel to increase the display space of its rectangular 1.5-inch touchscreen. It has a Super AMOLED color display, built-in music storage, and an auto tracking feature that makes it unnecessary to activate the band when beginning to exercise.
The band also features accelerometer, gyro, heart-rate monitor and barometer.
