Samsung plays on the nostalgia effect with Galaxy Ring: let’s retrace the history of its wearables since 1999

It doesn’t look particularly comfortable looking at it now, but in 1999 SPH-WP10 it was a glimpse into the future: a telephone On the wrist! Samsung retraces the history of its own wearable with an infographic starting from 25 years agomaking us relive unforgettable moments to arrive at the present day with the new Galaxy Ring.

Let’s look back at these years, but not before reminding you of our selections of the best smartwatches and smartbands on the market.

Let’s start from 1999 and that legendary one SPH-WP10 by the taste of Megaloman. It was the first commercial watch with telephone capabilities, featuring a backlit monochrome LCD screen and physical buttons for navigating menus. Oh, and you could call a contact using voice commands, but availability was limited, just like in 2000 with SPH-S100a much less bulky $1,000 phone-capable watch.

In 2003, the Seoul house tried again with Watch Phoneanother watch with telephone capabilities equipped with color screenfinally widely available commercially but with a battery life of an hour and a half, if used for calling.

Fast forward a few years, and Samsung seems to (temporarily) abandon the idea of ​​emulation Dick Tracy: after the company’s first Bluetooth headset let’s see the first smartwatches which in 2013 welcome the arrival of the progenitor of the Gear series.

These are the most important years for the company’s smartwatches, which manages to square the circle, one would say, moving from the first Gear with square screen al Gear S2, which will anticipate a series of solutions still in use today, such as the circular screen, the rotating crown and NFC payment. Dick Tracy’s legacy is still strong, and indeed Gear S supports 3G connectivity to talk without smartphone.

The first one also arrives Gear Fitequipped with a curved screen (at the time several manufacturers were focusing heavily on curved screens), then followed by the Gear Fit Pro and from Gear Fit 2, while in 2016 the company’s first earphones were launched, i Gear IconX.

In the 2018, everything changes: the name Gear is abandoned and the watches are called Galaxy Watch. The same happens in 2019 for the series Fit, which abandons the curved screen, and for the earphones, which become Galaxy Buds. Also in 2019 Samsung tries to launch the series Active of its Galaxy Watch, to which however it will not give much follow-up

We arrive in 2020, what if the Galaxy series Watch is now mature, Samsung still tries some experiments with earphones with the curious Galaxy Buds Livethe company’s first of the open type and “bean” shape.

The novelty is not appreciated by the market and Samsung, increasingly refining the concept Galaxy Watch And Galaxy Budsrelaunches after four years with a Galaxy Fit 3 from the larger screen, announced in February 2024.

As you can see, however, the innovative drive seems to have run out a bit, but here comes the Galaxy Ring, the progenitor of a new type of wearable. When will it arrive, but above all how much will it cost? Here you can see the infographic in full screen.