What’s going on with Fossil and Wear OS?

For quite a while, Fossil was pretty much the only name in the Wear OS game, but as Samsung and Google have reinvigorated the platform, Fossil seems to be falling behind, leaving more questions than answers about the brand’s future.

Over two years since Fossil’s last big Wear OS launch

Fossil has been a long-time partner in the Wear OS world, and the company has been reasonably consistent with new releases. Going back a few years, Fossil launched its Gen 3 hardware in August of 2017. Almost exactly a year later, Fossil delivered Gen 4 which was based on the same chip, but added NFC. Another year later, in August 2019, Fossil upgraded to a new chip and moved to 1GB of RAM in its Gen 5 lineup.

Moving from Gen 5 to Gen 6 was Fossil’s first time missing a year, as new hardware arrived in September 2021. This was, presumably, due in part to the pandemic and waiting on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 4100 generation of chipsets. Fossil then launched Gen 6 Wellness in late 2022 (which introduced Wear OS 3), and that’s the last big Wear OS release we’ve seen from Fossil Group outside of some sub-brand releases.

And, really, it’s very surprising that Fossil has been so silent. Wear OS 3 reinvigorated the app ecosystem and overall interest in Google-powered smartwatches, and the new Snapdragon W5 series from Qualcomm brings major improvements to performance and battery life. That chip has been available for over a year now and is used in hardware from Mobvoi and Google, too.

So, where’s Fossil in all of that? The most recent development has been the Wear OS 3.5 update, which arrived well after Google released Wear OS 4, and was also plagued with issues early on.

Fossil is running fire sales

Meanwhile, Fossil is running some pretty huge sales on the hardware that is left. While Black Friday and the holidays inevitably bring big discounts, Fossil is selling its latest hardware, the Gen 6 Wellness Edition, for just $130. That’s down from the $299 retail price, or over 50% off just a year later.

That seems like… not a great sign.

Meanwhile, things are very inconsistent with the rest of the family of smartwatches that were released on the Gen 6 platform.

All of the original Fossil Gen 6 hardware has disappeared from sale on Fossil’s website, and Skagen has also removed the Falster Gen 6 (easily the best of the Gen 6 lineup) from its website. The Diesel Griffed Gen 6 is still listed, but doesn’t appear to be available for purchase directly.

There are still some available. Micheal Kors continues to sell its Gen 6 smartwatches (and at retail pricing). The Citizen CZ Smart, also based on Fossil’s Gen 6 platform, has recently (quietly) returned to sale, but after being pulled off the market because it was so bad over the Summer.

No signs of Fossil Gen 7, and rumors it might not come

Despite it having been two years since Fossil’s last big Wear OS generation, there are still no signs of something around the corner. Fossil’s usual late-Summer release window has come and gone and, CES, one of the places Fossil has often launched new additions to its catalog, is approaching without any evidence of new Wear OS-based products on the way.

All the meanwhile, rumors are floating around that Fossil may have thrown in the towel as regards future Wear OS smartwatches.

On Reddit, multiple users claim to have spoken with Fossil retail employees, being told that Fossil won’t be producing any new future Wear OS products. A third user claims that a “friend who works at Fossil” suggests that the company is waiting on a future chipset release. It’s impossible to verify these specific claims, but the surrounding evidence makes it at least plausible.

Fossil did not reply to 9to5Google‘s request for comment regarding these rumors.

It’s hard to say exactly what lies in store for Fossil’s future with Wear OS, but it seems safe to say that it’s clear that things are not exactly looking up. There’s nothing obvious in the Wear OS pipeline that Fossil might benefit from, so if the company is just waiting, it’s hard to imagine what it might be waiting for.

And yet, at the same time, it’s also easy to see why bringing things to an end could be appealing. Fossil was left out of the entire conversation with Wear OS 3’s launch, while Google’s closer partnership with Samsung, changes to Google Assistant, and stronger focus on Fitbit at the expense of Google Fit really changed the game with Wear OS going forward.

Would you still buy a Fossil smartwatch with Wear OS? Let’s discuss in the comments below!

More on Wear OS:

• Wear OS gets stopwatches and calculators directly on the watch face with this app [Gallery]
• Google Wallet for Wear OS now shows loyalty cards
• Wear OS 3.5 starts rolling out to TicWatch Pro 3 today

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