What’s new in the December Wear OS 3 update for Fossil Gen 6 that’s rolling out

Fossil started rolling out Wear OS 3 to its Gen 6 devices in October, and the watches are getting their first update this December.

Fossil says the December Wear OS 3 update “primarily includes a number of minor improvements and bug fixes” for the Gen 6. It’s actively rolling out.

Six tentpoles were shared, and notable highlights include “Media controls bug fixes,” fixing the “Heart Rate LEDs not always running,” and addressing how ambient mode hands would disappear.

• Various Watch Face Fixes: “Including but not limited to text in the tutorials/help, various complications improvements (including steps), watch face settings timeout, colors/fonts/text and phone app customization, and ambient mode hands disappearing.”
• Various Button Improvements: “Phone call button answering so you can now press the buttons to answer/hang-up, button configuration fixes for upper/Alexa disassociation, middle and long press, etc.”
• Smart Battery Modes Updates: “Fixes to issues like location sometimes turning on in Extended Mode when it should not, new settings for [vibration], brightness controls and adaptive brightness in Daily/Extended Modes (which help with battery life, although we still see some areas to improve in adaptive brightness), turning to full brightness for flashlight, matching settings, reboot/post-charge behavior, and other updates.”
• Wellness Tracking Updates: “Latest Wear Health Services, a sensor software update (including Heart Rate LEDs not always running, which was caused by a more accurate calorie algo running all the time – we reverted to the previous calorie algo that uses steps/profile and use the HR-based algo with continuous HR/CHRM and workouts), fixed issue of permission requests repeating (i.e for watch face complications).”
• Syncing, Bluetooth, Pairing Improvements: “Several updates in the syncing and Bluetooth area, as well as background sync optimizations, fixed a pairing issue with some phones that blocked pairing (this applies to just a few specific phone models; if you cannot get past initial pairing, try setting up with another phone, update the watch, then go back to your first phone), and a Bluetooth name inconsistency fix.”
• Various Other Updates: “Media controls bug fixes, on-boarding message and help updates, dialer history calling and recents-launch fix, weather temp units, security patches/updates, talkback accessibility, etc.”

Fossil says “there is more in the pipeline” and provided an update on Google Assistant availability, but there’s otherwise no timeline yet. The company “continues to aid the Google Assistant team in testing their app on our watches as they work towards a version suitable for our users.”

It also hears customer feedback about “more use of buttons in select apps, various UI/UX changes, and battery life improvements.”