Fossil Gen 5 Smartwatch Review: Wearing OS is stuck in time

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The fossil alone keeps Wear OS afloat, with cool Android smartwatches arrive every autumn and the holiday season. (Fossil is a fashion brand, after all, with a product release cycle from the retailer.) But the company was selected by Google's Wear OS platform and The lack of rapid innovation of Qualcomm in the processors for wearables. With Gen 5, a range of $ 295 smart watches, Fossil is once again struggling to combat external limitations. This time, the company goes as far as possible and the result is quite good, at least compared to other Wear OS watches.

Fossil's fifth-generation Julianna HR and Carlyle HR watches are the basis for watches: watches offer more vivid performance than their predecessors, customizable drum modes and useful features. Google Assistant integration with spoken responses through the addition of a speaker in this range.

These are two of best smartwatches you can buy on the Wear OS platform. But that does not say that much when the competition outside of Wear OS is so tough. Third-party applications of watches are terribly basic; A long-awaited integration of Spotify does not even allow you to download offline playlists. And there are still some bugs that you do not meet with Samsung and Apple watches. The rate of progression of Wear OS from the snail remains a disappointment; The surveillance platform of Google should be as good as that of his smartphone, and it is nowhere else.

Design: More premium than Fossil Sport

Fossil is really in its element when designing wristwatches, and this sensitivity to design is found in the Gen 5 range. 44-millimeter round watches are too big for the wrists – and unfortunately, there is no smaller sizes in this range. Fossil sportThe 41mm and 43mm options are more comfortable on my little wrist, especially for physical training, but the 44mm Julianna HR does not look ridiculously big.

The Gen 5 range includes stainless steel glasses and three shades of choice: black, pink gold and smoked. You can choose from a variety of tapes in materials ranging from silicone to leather to mesh and stainless steel. I've tested the black mesh and black silicone strips for this review; if you plan to use this watch as a fitness tracker, the mesh is prohibited. (The mesh also requires a special tool to adjust the adjustment, which is embarrassing.)

Fossil is sticking to the three-button design of this generation of smartwatches. By default, the button at the bottom right makes it possible to access Google Fit, the central crown takes you back to the watch face and the button at the top right opens the Fossil application, which does not. is not at all useful. Fortunately, you can remap the button functions on the device by opening the Settings application. I like to customize my watch. So I made the settings more accessible with the button at the bottom right and assigned Fit Workout to the top button to easily launch a series (more on this later).

Wear OS: it's slowly improving but still needs work

Fossil doubled the RAM and storage of the Gen 5 range, which made all the difference. Each action seems faster and smoother, even compared to the Fossil Sport, which also works on Qualcomm's Snapdragon Wear 3100 chip.

But there are still things that drive me crazy. The Wear OS interface is just not as sophisticated as Galaxy Watch Active's One UI or Apple Watch's watchOS. There are still stammers when you perform small tasks such as opening applications or launching workouts.

And as with other Wear OS watches, it sometimes disconnects from your smartphone. Sometimes the repair is as simple as pressing the disconnect notification on the watch face. Other times, I had to restart the watch. Then, one day, I went to start a workout and the watch just decided to forget my Google account. I had to open the Wear OS app, reconnect, and then reconnect the watch to my phone. It is not the seamless experience that I expect from a $ 300 smartwatch.

However, Wear OS runs on Android and iOS, which is useful for people who do not want to be stuck on one platform. Fossil plans to make the watch a better buy for iOS users with a feature coming this fall that will allow you to take calls on the watch from your iPhone. We will update this review once we have had the opportunity to test this feature.

Battery life: customizable and expandable

Fossil strives to solve one of the most persistent problems with smart watches: the life of the battery. The company did not actually extend battery life in the Gen 5 lineup, but instead introduced new ways to gain more hours off the clock with four battery modes.

The customizable drum options are accessed from a battery shortcut when you slide down from the top of the home screen. You can choose between Daily, Extended, Custom and Time Only.

After 14 hours of wear (checking notifications, installing applications, tracking 30 minutes of rotational training in Google Fit with permanent display), the watch lost 35% battery life in custom mode. In this mode, I had disabled some settings but left the battery drains as the location and permanent display. A charge of 30 minutes made the watch up to 79%.

In daily mode, a similar day of use has depleted the battery at 22%. Extended mode disables almost all useful functions, including speakerphone, Wi-Fi, localization, activation switchover, NFC functions and "OK, Google", so you can live a few days of more. I only used it when my watch was about to die, so I could always check the notifications on my phone. The Time Only mode turns the watch into a simple timepiece, which is not why you would use a smart watch. I have never used this feature.

MORE: Best Fitness Trackers 2019

I enjoyed the customizable battery management tools, but I would prefer that Fossil put a larger battery in the watch to be able to use all the functions of the device several days at a time. Samsung Galaxy watches can last up to four days with a charge. The battery life is one of the reasons why Samsung has developed its own smartwatch operating system. Apple watches last about 24 hours with a charge, which is even better than the 18 hours I've seen from Fossil's Generation 5 in daily mode.

Apps and fitness: limited features

Fossil has focused on preinstalling a handful of useful apps when the company launched the Gen 5 watches. The watch includes Spotify, Nike + Club Run, Cardiogram and Noonlight ready for sale. Job, which is fine, but you still need to set up accounts and log in to these apps, which are the longest steps. I would prefer that Fossil not include apps on the watch and let me instead organize my own selections.

Of all the choices, I was very happy that Spotify was installed at launch, but I was quickly disappointed. You can control playback on your wrist while listening to Spotify on your phone, but you can not download playlists to listen offline as you can with the Samsung Galaxy Watch range.

Nike + Run Club is a more useful application to use by default because it is better for tracking races than Google Fit Workout, which lacks an automatic break. Strava remains the best Wear OS tracking app because it displays more data and has a better interface than Nike or Google Fit.

I would like Google to invest more in tracking workouts, a key smart watch feature that Apple and Samsung have perfected. With Google Fit Workout, you can choose from a variety of sports activities to follow, but it does not really analyze these activities and does not give you statistics specific to those sports. It just keeps track of your heart rate and the time you spend exercising, which is good, but a bit disappointing.

Bottom line

The Fossil Smartwatch Gen 5 is a Wear OS smartwatch. The increase in RAM had a noticeable impact on application launches and overall performance. Battery life is always catastrophic, but customizable battery modes allow you to prioritize the applications you want to use and sacrifice those for which you do not need constant access.

If you've never used a smart Wear OS watch and want to try the platform, it's a good option.

But compared to Samsung Galaxy Watch Active and at the Apple Watch Series 3 and 4 Series, Fossil's Gen 5 has the impression of playing AAA baseball while waiting for the big leagues. The pace of major software upgrades and snail processor improvements has delayed Google's smart watch platform. Galaxy Watch Active 2 and Apple Watch Series 5 this autumn.

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