Samsung to shut down WatchON service in Canada on December 31st

Last month we heard rumours that Samsung planned to shut down its ChatON instant messenger service. The company just last week came out with a statement refuting those rumours. While ChatON will live another day, the same cannot be said of WatchON, Samsung’s proprietary service that allows people to use their smartphone as a remote for their TV, set-top box or DVR. It also offers recommendations, on-demand content from multiple providers, and the ability to search, discover, explore and access what’s on live TV.

This morning SamMobile posted a screenshot from one of its readers who is also a WatchON user. This screenshot showed a pop-up from Samsung explaining that the service would shut down on December 31st of this year. Samsung has since confirmed the news with a statement that says the service will be discontinued in all markets except Korea and the United States.

“On December 31st, 2014, Samsung WatchON will discontinue full service in all markets, except the United States and Korea. We would like to assure customers that content previously purchased through Samsung WatchON will not be affected and will remain accessible through the relevant content provider’s application. We ask all customers with questions or concerns to please contact our customer support team by visiting the following website: http://help.content.samsung.com.”

WatchON is currently available in 19 countries, including Canada. It was introduced with the Galaxy S4 and is compatible with most Samsung mobile phones and tablets released since the S4 (26 devices in total), as well as the Gear 2 smartwatch.

[source]SamMobile[/source]