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Fossil is quitting smartwatches
- RattlesnakeJake 3y agoNot that anything great came of it, but Fossil was doing the full-featured "smartwatch" thing long before anyone else: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_Wrist_PDA https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_Wrist_PDA My teenage self wanted one of these so badly, but my married self is glad I never had the opportunity to be seen wearing one.
- dmitrygr 3y agoIt was actually pretty cool. The limitations were manageable and playing gameboy games on your watch was pretty fun in class
- apantel 3y agoDoes that have Dopewars?
- LeoPanthera 3y agoI had one! It was... functional, but limited. The tiny stylus that slotted into the strap was a good indication of its problems.
- mixmastamyk 3y agoLove it, back when tech served the user (poorly) instead of corporations first.
- coffeebeqn 3y agoYou can always wear one now that you’re locked down anyway
- stonecharioteer 3y agoI own a Fossil Hybrid Smartwatch. It's a near device, scratches both my itches for a good looking watch and a vibrating motor. That is until I got the Casio G-Shock GD350. I can't hear the alarm of most watches when I sleep, so I needed a watch that vibrates. I also swim so I need something that's decently waterproof. A G-Shock is practically indestructible.
- dharmab 3y agoI completely shattered my wrist some years back in an extreme circumstance. The GShock on that wrist was fine, and still works. I did have to replace the strap and a bent spring bar.
- az09mugen 3y agoI own a Fossil Hybrid 6 with e-ink and I'm very happy with it. The only features I needed were step counting, notifications, and the date. The customization of the screen is well thougt and allows a lot a of custom "watch faces" . By disabling all the other unnecessary stuff (alexa, heartbeat, O2 sensor, meteo,..), I can last more than one month without charging it. I will look into the G-Shock you're talking if (I hope not) my smartwatch comes to die.
- ianburrell 3y agoI think Google’s strategy of using watch makers for WearOS is dead, Fossil was last and biggest one. With Android Wear (WearOS 1), it was all electronics companies. With WearOS 2, it was watch makers. The watches were slow cause of using old processors. But they had normal and interesting designs. Then WearOS 3 unified Android and Samsung’s Tizen. Also, Google makes own Pixel Watch. The new watches had better processors. I got the feeling that the watch makers had a hard time with new tech.
- pjmlp 3y agoIt is going to be the same dead end as Android Things, when they gave up on Brillo and decided to push a mini-Android without NDK instead, naturally lost to Arduinos and ESP32 of the world. WearOS might have the NDK, but still requires beefy CPUs, as it is almost a full Android for all practical purposes. Whereas other smartwatch OSes are a mix of C, C++, pseudo JavaScript with SVG like Zepp OS, or Monkey C on Garmin's case. Most watch makers would rather keep using something like C89 or Assembly, and feeble CPUs, with year long batteries. Which come to think of it is was also how Pebble SDK was originally.
- neodymiumphish 3y agoWith all the performance enhancements it touted, I really thought Fuschia would be the perfect home for WesrOS hardware, but it seems that'll never happen.
- tw04 3y ago>I got the feeling that the watch makers had a hard time with new tech. I got the feeling that watch makers saw Google give Samsung a 6-month head start on WearOS 3 (as a bribe to kill Tizen) and said: yaaaa... we're not playing this game. https://www.androidcentral.com/samsung-and-googles-secrecy-wear-os-3-has-foiled-its-success-year https://www.androidcentral.com/samsung-and-googles-secrecy-w...
- whatever1 3y agoLike with tablets, only apple knows how to make a profit out of these.
- happymellon 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pjmlp 3y agoThere are plenty of Android tablets in Europe, not everyone has a wage to cope with Apple prices.
- Kamq 3y agoThe comment you responded to is about profit, not market penetration. You can get a lot of market penetration by having a series of companies spin up, ultimately fail to become profitable, and collapse. Especially with a market that's incredibly price conscious.
- pjmlp 3y agoTo have a profit in a specific country there have to be enough people with iDevices to start with. Like US is basically Apple takes it all, the rest of the world there are country where only rich kids get iDevices, those country apps companies care about the whole population.
- Kamq 3y ago> To have a profit in a specific country there have to be enough people with iDevices to start with. Sure, it's necessary, but it isn't sufficient.
- jijijijij 3y agoAnd like with the iPad, Apple doesn't make a profit from selling hardware, but hooking you up on a fantasy of a digital life, they only ever tease technologically, but never really deliver. At some point, you will always find yourself held back by artificial and practical limitations (at least if you desire to actually use the hardware as advertised), with the false promise of yet another Apple gadget finally making you whole. They don't make profit from producing either tablets, or smart watches, but the sunken cost fallacy in their ultimately crippling ecosystem. If Apple made a profit by selling standalone devices, I could respect this argument. But especially with the iPad and its fully capable processing power to replace a general purpose computing device, it's easy to see how their business "ingenuity" is set up. As someone, who fell for it twice, I think frustration and sadness about yet another competitor dropping out is absolutely warranted and relatable.
- nox101 3y ago[flagged]
- white_dragon88 3y ago[dead]
- INTPenis 3y agoWhy does this keep happening? I loved Pebble, they get butchered. I replace it with Fossil, now they quit. All I want is a simple watch with simple features that doesn't require charging every day. Their hybrid line with some sort of e-ink (like) display really is perfect to me.
- kazinator 3y agoMechanical with automatic movement (wound spontaneously by motion of your wrist).
- fsckboy 3y ago>All I want is a simple watch with simple features that doesn't require charging every day casio?
- SoylentBob 3y agoI have a Fossil Neutra Smartwatch. On the upside it is a decent watch, that I can wear in any context. On the downside the display is really bad and won't actually display anything at this point anymore, the watch is working fine though. Their app and synchronization process is also horrible. Synchronization is only triggered when you open the app, this process then takes what feels like ages to update the information in the app, and here comes the best part: You don't even get any valuable insights in your workout. Just some basic bar charts and sums. I feel that a Watch like that still is a product I'd like to buy, but the Fossil experience imo wasn't good enough overall.
- ramesh31 3y agoWhy has every smartwatch manufacturer (Apple included) refused to just sell me a watch sized phone? These things have more processing power than a gaming desktop from ten years ago. Why can't they just ship a fully fledged mobile OS, with 5G hotspot, external display support, and just provide my entire mobile experience? Instead we're left with pointless $500 step counters.
- relyks 3y agoApple does sell a watch with cellular and GPS and it can replace a phone (you can literally talk into it)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pharmakom 3y agoHow would most things work on such a small screen? I think the Apple Watch will become increasingly standalone.
- jolmg 3y agoSamsung sells watches with standalone cellular. You can get an eSIM for the watch and leave your phone at home. Seems their Gear S from 10 years ago was the first. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Gear_S https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Gear_S
- otikik 3y agoThe market has said they want big screens. They don’t even make small-sized smartphones any more. You must carry that skateboard around, like everyone else.
- lozenge 3y agoBattery life??
- anonuser123456 3y agoWhy doesn't Apple sell the Apple Watch Ultra?
- climb_stealth 3y agoAre there any decent hybrid smart watch alternatives? With that mean I mean having phone connectivity and alarms but still an analog watch. My Fossil Commuter is analog. But can configure notifications from the phone, and configure for each app where the hands point when it vibrates. Perfect for being able to have the phone on silent and just wear a regular watch. I don't want to read messages on my watch. I just want it to tell me when I'm getting a phone call because my phone is entirely silent. The battery also lasts for a year like a regular watch.
- yread 3y agoWe recently got Kronaby (owned by Festina). They look nice and the software is ok. We also looked at Sequent. Not sure about the 5-10 year future of these two, though
- climb_stealth 3y agoOh nice, Kronaby looks pretty promising. No display, all analog. And it has a find my phone function which I have been missing with my Fossil. Will have a closer look at them. Thanks for mentioning it!
- nullify88 3y agoHave a look at Withings. My HR Sport watch lasts just over a month on a single charge. I'm also satisfied with the application experience on Android. I'm surprised to see not many mentions of Withings here. Perhaps it's more popular in Europe.
- snoopen 3y agoI recently was looking at this for my partner. The best two options I've seen so far is the Withings ScanWatch (actually the ScanWatch 2 I think was recently released) and the Garmin Vivomove Trend. I don't have direct experience with them but from my research they seem decent. Of course they have limits compared to a full smartwatch.
- oakashes 3y ago
- TrianguloY 3y agoI recently bought a smartwatch. After a thorough search I ended up with two options: ticwatch pro 5 and pixel watch 2. I ended with the pixel, because of the size. It's a shame, I really liked the ticwatch, but most watches are just too big for my wrist size. The pixel is not great software-side (it has a sort of wallet garden, without a pixel phone most features aren't available) but ergonomically it's perfect. I don't know about fossil, but for me it seems like wear manufacturers haven't yet found what users want (except maybe for Apple, but that's probably because there is only one option)
- gnicholas 3y agoFor me, and some of the other commenters here, it was more about the hybrid smartwatches that have 2-week battery lives. I never even tried their full-fledged smartwatches.
- sofixa 3y ago> The pixel is not great software-side (it has a sort of wallet garden, without a pixel phone most features aren't available) but ergonomically it's perfect. Really? Most reviews I read seemed to indicate the Pixel Watches work fine with any recent Android, contrary to Samsung's watches that require Samsung Android phones for most features.
- mikelward 3y agoWithout a Pixel Watch, Do Not Disturb doesn't sync. I think also swiping notifications away on the watch doesn't dismiss them on the phone. Wouldn't call that "most features", but they're quite important to me.
- TrianguloY 3y agoDo not disturb doesn't sync, you can't see the watch battery from the phone, nor even get a notification when it finishes charging. They are not most features, I should have used "some", my mistake, but for an android watch connected to an android phone...it's not pleasant. Still, I have them by using third party apps (one of them open source where I even fixed a bug, the other from tasker) which is why I prefer android to other proprietary os watches.
- osigurdson 3y agoI used my apple watch for a couple of years but the pain of daily charging starts to drag.
- dkasper 3y agoDo you not daily charge your phone?
- themaninthedark 3y agoYou don't have to unfasten a phone to charge it.
- rchaud 3y agoIt's a hassle to keep multiple devices charged. If 80% of people have the mental bandwidth to keep their phone charged daily, I'd say less than 50% would be able to do the same for 2 devices. Part of the reason people like tablets as a second device is that you can turn off the screen and it'll maintain a charge for several days. If it had to be charged as frequently as a phone, people would just stick to their phone.
- MSFT_Edging 3y agoWhen I commute regularly, the ~25m plugged into my car to and from work will keep my phone going all week. When I work from home, I'll be charging it every other day, or piecemeal on a wireless charger when I remember. I love my mechanical watches because a few twists on the crown gets it moving and the automatic movement keeps it wound the rest of the day.
- osigurdson 3y agoI do but the phone is much more useful and doesn't require a special charger. I might start using it again at some point.
- saltcured 3y agoHeh, just to weird you out, I'll share that I charge my Pixel 5a phone about once a week and my Garmin FR255 watch about once every two weeks. And that's while recording about 5-6 hours of GPS tracks per week on the watch. I spend a lot of time in front of large screens, so my phone is mostly there in standby either to let someone call me or to do a quick check when away from a better computer. If I'm going somewhere expecting a call while my phone is pocketed, I might look for call notifications on my wrist. But otherwise I'd rather just poll my phone infrequently. Since I'm not enslaved to notifications, I usually turn on the bluetooth link once weekly to allow the watch to sync health data and refresh its cache of GPS ephemera for quick location fixes.
- mglz 3y agoAre there any privacy friendly smartwatches around?
- kaanyalova 3y agoThere is PineTime https://pine64.org/devices/pinetime/ https://pine64.org/devices/pinetime/
- WXLCKNO 3y agoWhen the market isn't even profitable enough for regular smart watches, I feel like the privacy niche won't have many people competing for it. Curious though if there are any
- codeulike 3y agoI have a fossil hybrid with e-ink screen. So good, only have to charge it once every two weeks
- imiric 3y agoSame. I love my Hybrid HR. I really don't want a screen on my wrist, and I like traditional watches, so this was a great middle ground to get some smart functionality. All other alternatives are too gaudy, bulky and techy. Guess I'll have to keep looking. ...Based on the discussion here, the Garmin Vivomove series looks interesting...
- mechhacker 3y agoI really like my Garmin Fenix. Got someone else a Garmin Instinct as a gift. Previously, I got a Samsung and it was a buggy piece of junk. The Garmin has been extremely reliable, getting regularly doused underwater in saltwater when crashing while windsurfing, monitors heart rate, and can be hooked up to a heart rate monitor. And I charge it maybe once a week. I looked into Apple Watches and I think Fossil too but they didn't seem to fit the bill. Apple has terrible watch battery life. I was able to put my Garmin in low power mode and only use the GPS when recording a few windsurf sessions, and it lasted 2 weeks like that without charging while in Europe.
- mc32 3y agoGarmins are good. Great battery life. I've bought other smartwatches, and this one is the best. Yes, there are UI improvements that they could make, but they do what they need to do and battery life...
- kilroy123 3y agoI feel the same. I love only charging once a week for like an hour. I do wish it was better at sleep tracking...
- mrweasel 3y agoSleep tracking is really interesting, but having to sleep with a huge watch isn't really appealing to me. Thinking about it, combining health tracking with a smart watch seems rather conflicted to me, they are mentally on the opposite sides of the health spectrum in my mind. One is suppose to help you, the other provides yet another way to keep you connected draining mental energy. I really think there should be devices that track health data and then just sync data to a computer or phone a few times a day. I know the Oura ring exists, but that's a subscription and therefor not interesting.
- theshackleford 3y agoMy watch is a pivotal part of my ongoing health management. It doesn’t drain mental energy, it restores it and also means I now have less need for a phone which does have things that could serve as a distraction. The watch is now largely the only device I carry for that reason. I suffer cognitive issues following severe health issues, the watch helps keep me on track with medication reminders and helpful pings to remind me of what I’m supposed to be doing/going to that day (drs appointments, scans, reminders to perform rehabilitation exercises etc). I can’t rely on my phone because it’s not guaranteed to be with me, but as long as I strap the watch on every morning (my partner reminds me first thing) I’m set for the day. No YouTube, HN, web browsing etc, it’s far more functional for me as a life tool than a phone with a significantly larger scope for distraction and time wasting.
- wanderingmind 3y agoAs a tangent, I'm looking for a FOSS watch. Last time I checked bangle.js met all my requirements but some feedback was the its not yet reliable. Has this improved? Also any other alternative that has GPS and pedometer?
- mergy 3y agoThis is unfortunate but not unexpected. The whole non-Apple ecosystem is a cluster. I can tell you though I have been very happy with Withings. I loved my Fitbits and they went south post-Google. I was not into charging a watch every day with my Samsung Galaxy watches. Then, enter Withings. I can actually go many days without running for a charger. Notifications are fine. I still get steps and pulse ox and EKG.
- bradley13 3y agoI really liked (past tense) Withings as well. However, the mineral glass kept breaking. I paid one replacement, and got two others under warranty. I didn't have this problem with older watches, and I don't have it now, with a Fossil.
- nektro 3y agoa fitbit is all i need in a watch
- isbvhodnvemrwvn 3y agoI had to replace my charge 5 several times within the last couple years, it breaks fairly regularly.
- buro9 3y agothis is such a hard segment. Apple Watch feels like it should be the best, but it's so tightly linked to the Apple ecosystem that if you're not all-in then it's the worst option (cannot update it if you don't also have an iPhone) Garmin looks great, and their watches are good, but their integrations with Apple or Google is weak, and they have so many strange quirks to them (just yesterday my partner's Garmin was out by 90 minutes for most of the day which baffled me as surely NTP + sync time via bluetooth with the phone!?) Suunto actually is great, except their heart rate tracking is pretty average to awful, which is a real shame as the devices are otherwise excellent And then the Google Watch ecosystem... watches that all feel laggy, 2nd class, and just lacking polish and finish, even the Pixel Watch just feels cheaper than it should There's so much potential, but everyone slightly misses the mark for a different reason. I stick with a Casio G-shock which isn't smart, but works exceptionally well for the little it does, but I check out smart watches a few times a year... and it feels like digital SLRs, for a long time they were worse than a film camera, and eventually they were better... smart watches are still in the territory of worse, I'm hoping they continue to get better
- nextaccountic 3y ago> (cannot update it if you don't also have an iPhone) Really? Can't the EU do anything about it?
- jimjambw 3y agoIt’s not even true that you can’t update an Apple Watch without an iPhone. https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204641 https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204641
- buro9 3y agoI popped into an Apple Store (Covent Garden) recently and directly asked (as I want the heart rate monitor Apple has)... and the assistant's response was that you need an iPhone to set up the watch initially, and that same iPhone must be used periodically for updates (which ruled out using one in-store to set it up, apparently the watch is paired to an iPhone?). I trusted what the Apple person told me.
- 2dvisio 3y agoEx owner of a Pebble (which was fantastic). Have tested (for work) a variety of watches and health trackers, loved the Apple ones and the Fitbit watches, but ultimately the Withings ones were the ones that stuck. Battery life, minimalistic look and core functionalities are the best. Also own a fossil (gift from wife recently) but whenever I can I always use my reliable and less power hungry Withings Scanwatch
- erwin-co 3y agoAnother one to look at is Coros. Excellent much more reasonably priced alternative to Garmin. EInk. Works underwater. GPS. Maps. Notification. Been searching for something good for a while and so far this is one to watch⌚
- axegon_ 3y agoShame. Many years ago I got a fossil (hybrid) watch(I believe the model was called Nate or something). Unfortunately it broke and it couldn't be fixed. At the time fossil had already given up on the model and the app that came with it. And it was the best watch I ever owned by a long shot. And overall fossil were doing it exactly right for me: inexpensive, great quality and unlike all other smart/semi-smart watches, they were good looking and comfortable. All other watches in this category are absolutely hideous.
- j4yav 3y agoI’d really love a regular watch that just looks like a Rolex or whatever and has the nice measurements sent to my phone but no digital screen.
- nottorp 3y agoWell, I bought a "hybrid smartwatch" from them. Because I hate the plastic toy look of most other options, and as a bonus please wake me up when the apple watch battery lasts a week. It sounded good in theory: normal watch with the background e-ink that will show your notifications and step count and heart rate and whatever. More of a fancy fitness band but that was good enough to start with. The battery even lasted 2 weeks. Unfortunately the eink was almost unreadable unless directly in the sun. It had a light you could turn on by tapping the watch but it was weak. Need I mention the software to configure it was pretty limited? Especially in the part where you configured what notifications to get and what not? But that's not the main problem. The main problem is either the glass front wasn't tight enough or it had humidity under it from the factory. So every time it got cold and humid it fogged up. That never happened to me with any other traditional watch, no matter how cheap it was. And one day... in about 2 years and some change... it just died on me. Waiting a few years and then checking hybrid watches again. Maybe this market niche will survive.
- insane_dreamer 3y agoI have a Withings ScanWatch and am quite happy with it; ticks the boxes (2 week battery life, notifications, a real analog movement, readable inside/outside, looks good). Also ECG which is the main reason I got it.
- LelouBil 3y agoI bought a hybrid smartwatch from them 6 months ago, but I use it exclusively with Gadgetbrige.
- Shawnj2 3y agoI don’t think the fossil style hybrid watch is going to survive, I think the hybrid watches we still have are ones which completely lack screens or only have extremely basic screens for showing health info and lack a user interface for checking texts etc.
- solardev 3y agoThe Garmin ones are much better, FWIW. They don't use eink but some other fancy technology with good battery life and durability and waterproofing.
- davemp 3y agoI’m of the opinion that “wearables” don’t provide enough convenience over just pulling a smartphone out of your pocket to justify themselves. Wristwatches only overtook pocket watches because they got to the point that they were comparable in function. The physics of reading off a screen is going to keep smartwatches in the fashion category unless there are some startrek tier breakthroughs.
- Shawnj2 3y agoThe pebble (and some Garmin watches) is phenomenal at this because they have a non backlit AOD so you can always read the time like a normal watch. The main other bonus for most people right now is health tracking.
- rufaia0147 3y ago[dead]
- b3nji 3y agoWhat are the chances of Fossil making the software open source? How cool would that be?
- Wildgoose 3y agoI love my Fossil Hybrid smartwatch! This is terrible news for those of us who want a watch that has smart features, as opposed to a miniature wrist phone.
- hypercube33 3y agoMy wife and I loved our fossil wearos watches except one flaw they never fixed - the damn glue to hold charging rings and the back cover on are not human friendly and sweat eats it away. I never figured out why they didn't change it or use screws.