Wearables were again a big part of the MWC 2014 this year, each big player had their own smartwatch or fitness wristband to contribute. This is only the beginning of an industry that will likely explode in the next year, but for now it’s still taking baby steps. That being said, there is hardly a manufacturer that isn’t trying their hand in this sector of mobility. Here is what all the big manufacturers are working on.

The Sony SmartBand is quite snazzy, but what do the other manufacturers have up their sleeves. © AndroidPIT Samsung

Samsung has already been present on the wearables market for quite some time now with the Galaxy Gear, however it didn’t turn out to be as fruitful as the manufacturer would have hoped, bombing with alarming return rates that likely terrified old Sammy. Now, Samsung has revealed three new wearables: a successor, the Galaxy Gear 2, a tweaked version minus the camera, the Galaxy Gear 2 Neo and a fitness wristband with AMOLED display, the Galaxy Gear Fit. The latter was presented along side the Galaxy S5 at the Unpacked event. Samsung just released SDK kits of developers to start developing for these newcomers, since they are now running on software based on the Tizen operating system, so we should be seeing a lot of new health and fitness apps coming soon.

Galaxy Gear 2 and Gear Neo run on a modified version of Tizen. © Samsung/AndroidPITSony

Sony delved deeper into its new fitness wristband and still hasn’t come out with the next generation of their smartwatches, presumably because they still need to invest a lot of work in this department as their first efforts, the SmartWatch 2 were the pits. A third generation could see the light of day at the end of the year.

They gave us a first taste of the SmartBand at the 2014 CES in Las Vegas and finally spilled all the goods at the MWC 2014 in Spain. The SmartBand is a plastic band which stores the core, a plastic piece where data is collected and computed. While wearing the SmartBand, Sony’s new app LifeLog will monitor not only your health, steps and calories, but your overall lifestyle, such a sleep patterns, music and social interactions. It buzzes when you get a call or a message and helps you stay on track with your life and fitness goals.

The SmartBand records your daily life habits, not just calories. © AndroidPITLG

LG brought us the LifeBand Touch at the CES this year, a fitness wearable with an LCD touchscreen. It helps monitor your fitness, so steps, calories, etc. and helps you keep on track with various lighting effects, also notifying you of calls and messages. The data is then recorded and analyzed on LG’s own app fitness app. They’ve also come out with heart-rate earbuds to wear while working out.

The LCD touch panel on the LifeBand Touch is quite neat.  © LG

Now, there are rumors that LG is supposedly building Google’s smartwatch. This could follow a strategy similar to that of the Nexus line. Google has confirmed that the watch will be based on Android and will reveal the device in June at their annual Google I/O. Now it seems with a recent leak that Motorola could even be building their watch under the codename Gem.

Motorola

Pictures have just been leaked as mentioned above of a new watch, codename Gem. The prototype in the picture reveal a plastic watch and a not very aesthetically appealing design. The Motorola smartwatch here comes with a hidden USB connector, capacitive back buttons and physical buttons and looks like Motorola’s own MotoActv. Could this be the direction they are working on?

I really hope that Motorola gets a better design than in this leaked prototype.  © Android PoliceHTC

The company can’t seem to get a break and their recent marketing stunts about Samsung Galaxy S5 buyers remorse weren’t the best but at least they got people talking. HTC Chairwoman made the announcement at the MWC on Monday that the HTC smartwatch will be ready by Christmas and that ‘it will be fashionable’. I sure hope so. Chairwoman Cher Wang says "It's natural for us to have wearables because we're a design company’’. It’s true that the HTC One is a great looking phone, so I can’t refute this. They also plan on focusing in on efficiency and that the HTC smartwatch will tether to a smartphone via Bluetooth rather than cellular radio.

So HTC says it's fashionable? Let's see what they can come up with.  © HTCNokia

Nokia has now dabbled in Android and now it looks like they are about to go even further and venture into the realm of wearables. Apparently, in late 2014, Nokia should be presenting the world with a smartwatch and that is will be completely separate from the handset division owned by Microsoft. Rumor has it that the Nokia smartwatch would pack bendy Kinetic technology and let the device change shape to perform different functions. Now that sounds interesting.

Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of wearables, an incredibly huge market that just keeps on getting bigger. We didn't mention Pebble, Qualcomm, Garmin, Razer and the list goes on. If you know of another cool innovation out there, let us know!

What smartwatch or fitness wristband would you buy? Samsung Galaxy Gear 2 Samsung Galaxy Gear 2 Neo Samsung Galaxy Gear Fit LG LifeBand Touch Sony SmartBand Sony Smartwatch 3 HTC smartwatch Nokia smartwatch LG Google smartwatch None of the above, answer in the comments below (Multiple selections allowed) VOTE!

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