Samsung Launches New Smartphone With S Bike Mode

Samsung India Electronics has launched a new smartphone - the Samsung Galaxy J3 - featuring the S Bike mode, a first of its kind dedicated feature for two wheeler riders that is designed to enable responsible and safe riding. The Galaxy J3 has been launched at a price of Rs 8,990.

The S Bike Mode, once activated, notifies callers through an automated answering machine that the user is riding and unable to take calls. The automated message is available in a choice of English and one other language - out of a total of 14 regional languages.

"Samsung is constantly in the pursuit of meaningful innovations that make people's lives better. S bike mode is a result of that vision. While studying the consumers' phone usage behaviour, we realised that incoming calls are a major distraction to bikers. We are very happy that we have come up with something that will benefit millions of two-wheeler users and promote responsible riding," said Asim Warsi, Senior Vice President, Samsung India Electronics.

(Samsung Galaxy J3 S Bike Mode Interface)

The user of course needs to switch on the S Bike Mode of the Galaxy J3 to enable it, and this can be done either through the phone menu or through an NFC (Near Field Communication) tag. The tag can be fixed at a convenient place, like the fuel tank of a bike and all the user needs to do is to tap the mobile phone on the NFC tag to activate the S Bike Mode.

All callers hear a pre-recorded message that informs callers that the Galaxy J3 user is riding a two-wheeler and is unable to take the call. The S bike mode user does not get any notification that there was an incoming call (to avoid distraction). In case the call is urgent, the caller may choose to press 1, which allows urgent calls to go through.

The motion lock feature ensures that if the S bike mode user decides to take the urgent incoming call, he will need to bring his bike to a halt to be able to answer the call. The phone will not allow the incoming call to get answered owing to motion lock. This safety feature is designed to encourage responsible riding.

The S bike mode also sports an intuitive user interface where users can see a log of call notifications while the mode is enabled. It also has a Smart Reply feature where selected contacts will receive an auto-SMS with an estimate of when the user is likely to be available for a call basis a trip destination entered by the user.

Developed in Samsung's R&D centre in India, the S Bike Mode will be made available across all 4G-enabled Galaxy J Series devices over a period of time.