Fossil is quitting smartwatches::Fossil is going to stop making smartwatches. It was one of the most prolific companies creating Wear OS watches.

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[–] 52 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (8 children)

Damn. Big fan of their hybrid smart watches (e-ink screen, ~10 day battery and looked like a watch).

Anyone know of any good similar products?

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  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    I don't know of any e-ink displays outside of Fossil but give Garmin a try. I use the Vivoactive 4 and get a week+ of battery.

    I went from Pebble > Fossil > Garmin.

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  • [–] 16 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    Withings. Small oled display, looks like an analog watch until you use it. Ton of sensors to monitor your health, or none if you don't want that. And a huge battery. Like huge enough to lose the charger between charges 😆

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Garmin is know for excellent battery life. I don't think they use e-ink though.

    A much bigger drawback (to me at least) they lack Google Pay support and keep pushing Garmin Pay which is not widely supported.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    ?

    Is there really any functional difference which backend is providing that virtual card number? I have never seen a terminal anywhere that A) supported contactless in the first place, but B) did not work with the Garmin Pay feature of my Fenix 6. Even out in the sticks. Not-a-one.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    The difference is in the bank support. All contactless terminals support all NFC payment providers. But banks don't. Each bank chooses with which services to integrate, and this part is not standardized so it requires some investment on the bank side.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    Another vote for Garmin instinct (2 solar in my case). Not E-ink but oldschool style black/white LCD. Full charge with nightly pulsox is just above 2 weeks, would be 3 if i turned off nightly pulsox. With solar, if you are active outside and have a sunny climate, you probably do not need to charge basically at all.

    There is also the instinct crossover for the hybrid look. But first series instincts are supposedly hit or miss on the software. And trust me, the whole analogue watch thing is nice for looks, but really you will not look at it if you have a digital clock on the watch face.

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    [–] 29 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    That’s a shame. I really liked my Fossil before I switched to the Apple Watch. It did a fantastic job of looking like a normal watch while still being a decent smartwatch.

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  • [–] 24 points 2 years ago (8 children)

    The square face of the Apple Watch really irks me.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago

    I know I'm in the minority, but I switched from a square Android watch (LG G Watch from the neolithic era) to a round watch, and I miss the square. A round screen is awkward for anything but a simple watch face, IMO. I use my new watch much less than my old watch, partly because of this, and I don't think I'll ever buy another one.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    Visually as a watch design I agree with you. Having used quite a few round face smart watches before getting an Apple Watch I can absolutely see why Apple went with a square face. It just makes way more sense for displaying data. A square space displays more information in a an easier to read format.

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  • [–] 23 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    I'd love a smartwatch that, along with telling time, is just a screen that shows me my notifications and a button to pause my music.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    There are dozens like those...

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (9 children)

    Such as? Not doubting, I just want to know

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    [–] 17 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I love my pre-smart era Fossil watch. I hope they go back to making classy digital watches again, I would buy another.

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    [–] 13 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    Will there ever be a day where I can just buy a smart watch strap to attach to my mechanic watch to get biometrics and what not?

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    [–] 12 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    They have to get usable at some point, but I got tired of the (shitty off-brand) smart watch I had after a couple minutes. I replaced it with a fully analog Seiko watch and a fitness tracker ring.

    Way easier to manage and still meets the needs addressed by the smart watch.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago*

    I really enjoyed my Samsung watch. I was able to give it a face that looked like a nice watch. It was round. I could get notifications without taking my phone out of my suit jacket. I still have it and it works with my work iPhone and personal android. I hardly have any use for it now that I work from home though.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    Seiko are great watches. I have a couple of G-Shock watches and a Garmin heart rate monitor watch. The Garmin is kinda like a smart watch but more practical. It's got all the sports stuff you'd ever need but GPS too. It makes for an excellent daily-driver watch.

    I find HRM watches to be very handy. I can tell from checking my heart rate whether I need to slow down my running speed. I can tell if I start running for something how long I'll last by checking my heart rate. If it's in the "anabolic zone" I'll crap out in a few minutes. If it's in the "aerobic zone" I'll crap out when my body gives up.

    It's also been handy for monitoring my general fitness. Resting heart rate, steps, floors travelled, etc. I recommend the Garmin Fenix if you ever wanna try out a 'Smart watch' again: https://www.garmin.com/en-GB/p/641479

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    I think "full blown" smart watches like the Apple Watch and Samsung Gear are largely a waste of money. I always considered getting one, but always read the largely "meh" or negative reviews from them. When I got my Galaxy S23 Ultra Verizon said I could get the Gear 5 for "free" I just had to pay $5/month for LTE service. The thing lasts about 15 hours on a single charge, it's damn near impossible to type anything on, I've never used it to make or receive a phone call, the fitness tracking is nice, but unless you're a hardcore athlete/gym rat you don't really need it, and the sleep tracking is nice, but once again not really that useful. After about a year of using it, I'm largely over it.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I really rely on my watch for notifications in particular since it’s MUCH less intrusive to check my wrist than pull my phone out. The other big benefit for me is maps. I get a tap on the wrist when my turn is coming up, which works particularly well when walking like I’m doing a lot of in NYC this week.

    That said, my watch is something like 5 years old now and I see zero reason to upgrade. I’ll wear it till it dies and then buy whatever the cheap version is.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    Garmin vivomove.

    Analog face, and a wee display that tells you whether you want to look at your phone when it buzzes. Counts steps and stuff if you're into that. Week of battery (still 5-7 days after like 5-6 years of owning mine). Perfect daily wear.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    yeah I got a watch 4 for free with my s22 ultra, I gave it a good shot and used it for a few months but went back to my garmin. I simply don't need a lot of the "smart" features aside from notifications and fitness tracking, which garmin does better, and then there's the battery.... different worlds there

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    Yeah, I had a few FitBits before this and they were great, the battery lasted like 4-5 days. The software on this has gotten better, I think it may last a full day now, but still, that's pretty bad. Also, I get tons of spam texts on my watch which is just flat out annoying.

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    [–] 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    Sucks but they couldnot keep up. I'm rocking a Garmin and am very happy with it

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    [–] 8 points 2 years ago

    That's sad but at the same time, their QC wasn't that great, I had a ring fall off of one and the entire back fall off the other.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    I like the style. I might just skip smart watches just because of this.

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  • [–] [B] 3 points 2 years ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    The company announced this afternoon that it would leave the smartwatch business and redirect resources to its less-smart goods instead.

    The company has been one of the most prolific makers of Wear OS smartwatches over the years, and its absence will leave a large gap in the market.

    “Fossil Group is redirecting resources to support our core strength and the core segments of our business that continue to provide strong growth opportunities for us: designing and distributing exciting traditional watches, jewelry, and leather goods under our own as well as licensed brand names.”

    This shouldn’t come as a huge shock if you’ve been paying attention to Fossil the past few months.

    The company regularly put out smartwatches through Wear OS’s toughest years and was often a permanent fixture at CES.

    What’s more, Fossil was expected to announce news of a new Gen 7 featuring the Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 Plus platform in 2023 — however, it was nothing but crickets the entire year.


    The original article contains 287 words, the summary contains 160 words. Saved 44%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I just want Pebble back 😭😭😭

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