Gear S3 to support Samsung Pay even without a Samsung phone
Samsung Pay confirms to AC that the service will work on Gear S3 when paired with any Android 4.4+ phone.While most of the Gear S2's features work just fine when paired to a non-Samsung phone, Samsung Pay was off-limits unless your watch was paired to a Galaxy device.On the upcoming Gear S3 watches, it looks like that's no longer the case.
Samsung Pay Will Work on Gear S3 Even When Paired with Non-Galaxy Phones
"When it launched the device in late summer, [Samsung] was keen to note that the Gear S3 would not only support Samsung Pay, but enable the MST technology that allows it to be used on older payment card readers…"Samsung Pay will work on the Gear S3 even if the smartwatch is paired with a non-Galaxy device, so long as it's running the KitKat version of Android of above.The news comes by way of AndroidCentral, which received the confirmation after reaching out to Samsung Pay on Twitter.AndroidCentral notes that "some sort of partner app" on the paired smartphone will likely be needed, given that Samsung Pay is unlikely to allow credit card information to be stored on the smartwatch itself, but further details haven't yet been revealed.
Samsung Pay will work on Gear S3 watches paired with any phone running 4.4 KitKat and up
Up until now, if you wanted to use Samsung Pay on a Gear smartwatch that wasn't paired to a Samsung smartphone, you were simply out of luck.This won't be the case anymore, however, as Samsung's contactless payment service will work just fine on Gear S3 smartwatches paired with non-Samsung smarpthones.The only requirement is that the phone is running Android 4.4 KitKat and up.Unfortunately, this doesn't mean that Samsung Pay will be made available on all non-Samsung smartphones as a standalone service, but it's a liberating decision on part of the company nonetheless, as Gear S3 users won't be forced to have their smartwatches paired to a Samsung device in order to use the company's wireless payment platform.Inputting card info will likely be handled by some sort of a companion app, rather than from the watch itself, although Samsung is known for striving for the highest security possible when it comes to its wireless payment service, so it remains to be seen how this will pan out.The information has been confirmed by a Samsung Pay rep on Twitter, but details are slim at this point.
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