Galaxy Watch 5 FCC Listing Reveals A Long-Overdue Charging Upgrade
If you've been watching the smartwatch market for the past two years or so, you probably know that something is up with Samsung's line of wearables. The company made a surprising shift in its strategy and ditched its homegrown Tizen-based OS in favor of Google's Wear OS, causing the tides to change in the latter's favor. While the dust is still settling from that — support for Google Assistant is still in its early stages, for example — Samsung seems to be stirring things up again with the upcoming Galaxy Watch 5 series. Interested users and hopeful buyers might be a tad disappointed about rumors of the rotating bezel's demise, but the new smartwatch could still have plenty to offer, especially based on its sighting at the FCC.
There have been tips that Samsung will be ditching the rotating bezel that has become an almost iconic feature of its Galaxy Watch wearables, including the old Gear S line. This wouldn't be the first time it happened, but it might be more permanent this time around. No other smartwatch has this feature, and Samsung probably considers it a burden now rather than a selling point. The company does have a virtual equivalent that uses a touch-sensitive bezel, but that may eventually disappear, too.
The FCC listing (via Android Police) doesn't exactly confirm nor deny that, but it does hint at the available models. These include the SM-900 and SM-910, believed to be two sizes of the base Galaxy Watch 5 model, as well as the SM-920, which could be the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro. Despite the "Pro" in its name, the latter is believed to eschew that rotating bezel, which would have been put on a Classic variant.
FCC docs hint at faster charging speeds
The most interesting revelation in the FCC entry is the charger that comes along with the smartwatches: it is rated at 5V/2A, which means it will be capable of putting out 10W of power to charge the Galaxy Watch 5. That's twice the output of all Samsung smartwatch chargers to date, suggesting that these wearables will be capable of faster charging, as well.
Current Samsung smartwatches max out at 5W charging, so there is no reason for the chargers to support anything higher. That charging rate, however, has been long in the tooth for years and has been overtaken by other rivals in the market, especially the Apple Watch. Faster charging rates mean shorter charging times, which means you won't have to wait too long to get your watch to even just 50% in an emergency.
That said, the Galaxy Watch 5 is also expected to have larger battery capacities, which evens things out a bit. That does mean you won't have to charge that often, and when you do, you won't have to spend too much time waiting for it to finish. Other than its bezel, battery, and, now, charging rate, there hasn't been anything noteworthy leaked about the Galaxy Watch 5 series, at least not yet. With its potential debut in August, we will probably hear more that will either convince us this is the Samsung smartwatch to grab or give it a hard pass instead.