During its Unpacked event, Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Note9, Galaxy Home, and Galaxy Watch. Despite the Note9 commanding a majority of the attention, there have been quite a few people clamoring for a successor to the Gear S3, which was released nearly two years ago. Now that the Galaxy Watch has been made official, there is one aspect of the wearable that has been confirmed, which is the absence of Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST).
If you aren"t familiar, MST is the technology that allows Samsung handsets and watches that have the technology on board, to make purchases at nearly every payment terminal, regardless if it accepts NFC payment options. The technology was acquired when it purchased LoopPay allowing Samsung to instantly compete while gaining an edge in the mobile payment space. MST is the technology that sets it apart from its competitors, Apple Pay and Google Pay.
Although the Galaxy Watch does offer plenty of new and improved features over its predecessor, one has to wonder just how important MST will be for consumers when it comes to upgrading or making a new purchasing decision. While those that purchase the watch without any previous experience might not even think about it, the new watch does make for a trivial upgrade for current Gear S3 owners. From personal experience, MST is a life saver, with pretty much any payment terminal yielding to the technology.
Now all of this doesn"t mean that the Galaxy Watch won"t be able to make purchases. For this iteration of its wearable, Samsung will be fully relying on Samsung Pay via NFC. By utilizing just this technology, Samsung is essentially making its offering similar to that of other mobile payment services, meaning that if the terminal doesn"t specify "Samsung Pay", you won"t be able to make a payment using the new watch.
So that"s where the question comes in: Does the Galaxy Watch without MST technology turn you off to the purchase? Or does it not even matter? We will be looking forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments section.