Samsung have used the Baselworld 2017 watch trade show to show off several unique concept variants of its Gear S3 smartwatch, designed by prominent watch designer Yvan Arpa.
The most eye-catching of these new models is the pocket watch one, which removes the wrist-band and instead incorporates a compass and traditional watch design.
The other Gear S3 concepts shown include watches where the electronic guts of the smartwatch have been pulled out and swapped for fine Swiss machinery.
For better or worse, it doesn’t look like Samsung will be ranging these for consumers but it’s nice to see them take the smartwatch concept in some new directions regardless.
Market research firm Canalys recently released new estimates for the global smartwatch market, predicting 18% growth to over $10 billion in 2017.
What’s more, they predict that this growth will come at the expense of the traditional watch industry. They say that the average selling price of smartwatches will climb and, eventually pushing the value of the smartwatch market to approximately two thirds of the traditional Swiss market.
