Samsung patents a rotary dial display for smartwatches

Samsung’s Gear S3 smartwatch has a touchscreen display, but also features a rotary dial that surrounds the display, allowing you to twist the dial to perform some functions, such as scrolling through your apps.

But Samsung is at least considering the possibility of using the rotary dial for something else: a display.

Patently Mobile spotted a patent application from Samsung for the tech that would allow the company to create a smartwatch with a secondary display that wraps around the edges of the watch face.

The idea would be to show information like the date, time, weather forecast, or currently playing song on the secondary display, while the primary smartwatch screen shows your watch face or other apps.

It’s worth keeping in mind that companies like Samsung apply for patents for many concepts that never actually see the light of day. But given the company’s track record of producing flexible displays and of doing interesting things with watch bezels, a watch with this kind of secondary display seems like a completely plausible idea for an upcoming Samsung product.

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