'Smartphones aren't something very special anymore," said Lee Young-Hee, Samsung's executive vice-president of Global Marketing for IT and Mobile.
The South Korean brand that's become ubiquitous in our life is now looking beyond the Galaxy S and Note. With the recently released Samsung Gear VR, the GearFit2 fitness band and GearIconX wireless earphones, Samsung is straying into other forms of technology. Their latest technologies, along with their other seemingly far-fetched visions of the future, are proudly displayed in Samsung D'Light Store in Seoul, the Samsung Innovation Museum, and their gigantic headquarters -- the Samsung Digital City in Suwon, recently visited by a group of Thai press.
"We believe that smartphones are now a gateway to provide different experiences," said Lee. "We have huge potential to go beyond smartphones. The entire ecosystem we're building is very critical. Beyond phones, we have lots of things to deliver, from wearables to IoT [Internet of Things]."
SIM Museum
Though the very concept may seem self-aggrandising, the Samsung Innovation Museum -- known, somewhat redundantly, as SIM Museum -- is actually a worthwhile place to visit for tech-freaks and those truly interested in the history and development of electronics as a whole.
Inside the five-story, minimally designed complex located at Samsung's headquarters in Suwon, the SIM Museum offers a look into the past, present and future of the market giant and of tech everywhere. You could view it as a sponsored science museum.
Split into the three sections mentioned above, the first hall displays technological innovations from the 18th to the 20th century, with Samsung paying homage to the inventors of the first washing machine, refrigerator, vacuum, radio and morse-code machine, clearly displayed behind Samsung's impressive, transparent OLED touchscreens and underneath domed structures projecting mini-educational movies.
From the second floor onwards, the SIM Museum displays the developments of television, mobile phones and the internet, displaying more than 150 real artefacts of varying brands (except for one unmentionable rival brand), as Samsung's nods of inspiration and development. The world's first mobile phone, the Motorola's DynaTAC8000X, and the world's first smartphone, IBM's Personal Communicator, are also displayed and given a nod of appreciation.
The remained of this section is an all-out Samsung hard-sell, with interactive stations to play with, and, again, a giant display of Samsung's latest products, from laptops and fitness devices to vacuums and washing machines, that can also be tried out.
The third hall -- possibly the most interesting -- reveals what the company has planned for its future. Inside a curved Ultra-High Definition theatre is projected an epic (and at times cheesy) movie depicting their ambitious goals. The film illustrates some of the technological feats and concepts that Samsung intends to accomplish in the future -- for example, instant water-filter containers, wearable sensors to track your vital signs and location, chameleon fabric that changes patterns according to your liking, and high-tech contact lenses of the kind typically only seen in spy movies.
With Samsung hoping to see itself as the world leader in technology other than smartphones, they, though confident, still have a lot of competition to face. As Young-Hee noted at the Samsung headquarters: "Most of you are holding other phones in your hands. That's our issue," she says. "For the premium sect, we're not there. That's our biggest challenge. But I have strong confidence, because with our VR, which our competitors don't have, we'll deliver a very different level of experience."
Samsung Innovation Museum 129 Samseong-ro, Yeongtong-gu, Suwon-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea. Open Monday to Saturday from 10am to 6pm. Visitors on weekdays are asked to make reservations on the museum's website. There is no need for reservations for weekend visits.
Samsung D'Light
Situated inside the Samsung Electronics building in Seocho-dong is Samsung D'Light. Short for "digital" and "light", the three-story complex consists of two activity-filled exhibition rooms on the first and second floors, and Samsung's gigantic flagship store in the basement.
The flagship store showcases all the latest Samsung Electronics tech, including fun trials with the Samsung GR. But what's worth visiting for a peek into the future is their exhibition space, which could fairly be described as futuristic.
The first floor features a series of interactive activities touted as a "journey of self discovery". Each tongue-in-cheek activity assigns guests a positive adjective that describes their character, summarising their overall personality at the end. One purpose of this "journey", of course, is to show off what Samsung's latest devices can do. Guests receive paper wristbands in order to activate such activities as photo-editing with the shake of a phone, metering displays and motion-capture functions in the Galaxy S7. Samsung's latest curved SUHD TV screens and mirror OLED mirror displays are also smartly shown off.
The second floor, called "Connect Tomorrow", is even more impressive, as it focuses on what Samsung can bring in the future. Going up the escalators, guests are faced with a large bright wall that -- with the touch of your wristband -- shows off the capabilities of semiconductors (the brains of electronics) for individuals, for society, and for the world in general. The screens play mini-movies of people using LED car-window screens, people walking around their houses with smart light sensors, and other tech that you're more likely to see on The Jetsons.
The floor goes further to reveal Samsung's vision of eight realms in life that their technology will affect. From kitchens and classrooms to shopping and health, all of these are displayed in a large white room filled with minimalist white furniture, with tablets in front of each section. Picking up the tablets, guests can see a 360-degree virtual reality of the "rooms". Some concepts include self-parking cars, smart coffee OLED tables that can charge phones, and drones sending off gifts or online orders. Samsung hopes to develop this vision for the future, and in some cases, like the smart classroom with a digital chalkboard linked to all of the students' tablets, are already being used in certain Korean schools.
Samsung D'Light's 'Intuition' room displaying their SUHD TV curved screens. PhotoS courtesy of Samsung Thailand
Samsung Innovation Museum displaying information on the advent of the internet. Photo courtesy of Samsung Thailand
