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Fossil Gen 6 is not the smartwatch for me right now

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Man oh man do I wish Fossil would have waited to launch the Fossil Gen 6 with Wear OS 3.

Although the product is not bad by any means it's just not worth its current asking price of $300. Without giving it all away at once let's unpack the Fossil Gen 6.

Design/Build

The design is great. I like that Fossil typically puts stainless steel in its smartwatch products and the Gen 6 is no different. The outer edge of the bezel is jagged but looks subtle. The Gens 6 itself is not thick and it does have a little heft to it compared to my Fossil Gen 5. This heft adds to the premium look and feel. On the bottom where the sensors are housed, there is one additional sensor. Probably for the Blood Oxygen readings.

Processor

We have the Qualcomm Snapdragon 4100+. This chip enables speedy performance but not all that faster than my Gen 5. I noticed that apps do, however, download much faster. I would also say performance is more consistent and faster overall than the Gen 5. With the Gen 5 performance does suffer from being what appears to be bogged down by background services and displays app lag. The new chip allows for an AOD with more color when in Ambient Mode. That's a nice touch but is dependent on what watch face you are using.

Software/Features

This is where things come crashing down for me and to be honest I was a little letdown. There is not much difference from the Gen 5 to Gen 6 that's really user-facing. Yes, you have a Blood Oxeyegn sensor but how often is someone checking that. There is one new watch face that is okay. Then there are the features that are enabled by the new processor which isn't a whole lot. Running Wear OS 2 has a lot to do with this but should not be the end all be all. 

The Fossil Gen 6 is too much like my Gen 5 and for that reason, I will be returning mine to Best Buy. I believe it is a tough sell at $300 especially with it running the previous version of Wear OS, Wear OS 2. The Gen 6 is a smartwatch I may consider looking at again once it is running the latest version of Wear OS. The design and build alone are worth it if you are someone without a smartwatch or have a really old smartwatch and happen to be in the market. Unfortunately or fortunately for me, my current smartwatch is still up to the task due to a lack of differentiating features from the Gen 6.




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