Samsung’s Gear S3 smartwatch is still by far my favorite smartwatch option on the market today, and a huge part of that boils down to the unique hardware. Samsung has built the Tizen software experience on this device around the rotating bezels, but there have been some glaring omissions. Now, the company is finally fixing one of those.
Update: Many users are reporting that this feature has been available since the Gear S3 first launched. Through some digging, we’ve figured out that this is probably a difference between the cellular and Bluetooth-only versions of the Gear S3. This update does bring this feature new to Bluetooth versions of the Gear S3 as we’ve personally confirmed on our own units of the Gear S3 Frontier and Classic. We’ve also reached out to Samsung for confirmation on the matter.
Since its debut, users have been able to see incoming calls on their smartwatch, but there’s been no way to answer them. Rotating the bezel simply hangs up the call. Needless to say, that’s a really odd omission. Now, though, a new update is fixing that.
Rolling out now to the Gear S3 Frontier and Gear S3 Classic, a 13MB update adds the ability to answer a call by turning the bezel in a counterclockwise direction, while moving it clockwise still ignores the incoming call.
You can see what the feature looks like in action in the image above, but there’s really nothing too complicated about it. One quick turn counterclockwise should answer the call. If audio is routed through your smartphone or a Bluetooth audio source, it will direct there, but you can also direct calls through the watch if you want.
It’s definitely odd that Samsung has waited such a long time to add this simple feature, but we’re glad to finally see it live now. If you’re using a Gear S3 device, the update should be available through your connected smartphone. Simply open the Samsung Gear app and head to About Gear > Update Gear Software to ensure you’re on the latest version.
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