When you imagine a Wear OS watch, you’re probably thinking of a Fossil or one of the many design brands under the company’s umbrella (Kate Spade, Michael Kors, etc.). Of course, when Google and Samsung announced that they had joined a revised Wear OS platform, it was only a matter of time before Fossil launched a new watch. Well, the wait is over. Today, the company announced the Gen 6 Fossil and while it looks like a solid upgrade, the timing could be better.
He Gen 6 it will be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear 4100+ platform, which will allow for faster performance and a host of long-overdue features from Wear OS. These include a SpO2 sensor, a speakerphone, an always-on screen, faster charging, and automatic syncing. It’s great to finally see some of these features on an Android-enabled smartwatch others than a Samsung, but the 4100+ chip isn’t exactly good news right now.
First, the 4100+ chip is it’s been over a yearand it is rumored that Qualcomm will come out a new platform next year. There are good reasons to believe that the chip is not optimized for the new Samsung-Google Wear operating system, called Wear OS 3. The new Wear OS won’t arrive in the Gen 6 until mid-2022 at the earliest, so if you buy this watch when it launches, it will use Wear OS 2 for several months.
The Gen 6 looks like your typical Fossil watch. It comes in box sizes of 42 and 44 mm, with a 1.28-inch color screen. It has 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage, which is pretty standard for Fossil watches. In addition to the new SpO2 sensor, it also has built-in GPS, continuous heart rate control and water resistance up to 30 meters. Fossil claims that the battery life of the new watch can be charged up to 80% in 30 minutes and that it lasts at least 24 hours with a charge. This isn’t impressive at all, but it’s better than the old watches powered by Snapdragon Wear 3100.
In total, the Fossil Gen 6 it feels like a transition smartwatch. It’s not that you are no get updates. You are. The 4100+ platform represents a significant increase in the processing capacity of the 3100 chip, which has powered all Fossil watches since 2018. But Samsung is excellent Galaxy Watch 4 lineup it’s also here, it already has the new Wear operating system and it works with a processor that yes a lot more powerful than the 4100+. The $ 250mm 40mm Bluetooth Watch 4 is also cheaper than the Gen 6, which will cost between $ 299 and $ 319, depending on the version you get. None of this is added at all.
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Fossil does not dictate when Wear OS 3 will be ready to run on its hardware, nor does it decide when a more powerful usable chip that can handle the new Wear OS will come out. Works with restrictions set by Google and Qualcomm. Fossil ‘s latest watches, the Gen 5E and the There are 5 LTE they were both clocks that seemed to stop for something better to come. He Gen 6 it could have a similar fate.
But the Gen 6 is one of the few Android watches that has been confirmed to be getting Wear OS 3. This at least makes it a perfect purchase for anyone still stuck on a smartwatch with 2100 technology (which, Yes). We’ll have to test ourselves to see if the clock works, both with Wear OS 2 and Wear OS 3 when it’s available.
The fossil Gen 6 will come in seven colors –four for the 44mm version and three for the 42mm, and will feature interchangeable straps. It’s Fossil, so there are billions of different accessories as well. You can pre-order the watch on the Fossil website starting today.