Google and Samsung’s Smart Watches: Their Promise, Expectations, and Promises beyond the Apple / Google/Samsung Era

First things first. The device runs the Wear OS operating system. The company largely left it by the wayside over the years as Apple dominated the smartwatch market, but a few companies like Fossil devotedly continued to build smartwatches for the platform. Last year, Google debuted Wear OS 3, a new version that promised a new look, better performance, more extensive health tracking, and longer battery life. The company also committed to improving the sorely lackluster app selection.

“We are absolutely committed to the space and, hopefully, the evidence is there,” Kilburn says. “If you look at the number of apps that have been refreshed in the last year and a half, then the Pixel team building the first-party watch, and our collaboration with Samsung—which is super-positive—I think those are all strong indicators that there’s a lot of commitment beyond just the Wear team.”

It’s no surprise that phone owners can expect a new version of their operating system every year. That’s the hope, at least.

While it’s better than nothing, an instrument that’s running software shouldn’t have Amazon’s Assistant. For health and fitness tracking, Google and Samsung’s Wear OS watches have strong native apps, too. The Wellness app is very pleasing but it is not integrated well into the overall Wear OS 3 experience. The integration of the fitness tracker into the watch is more polished than that of Fossil’s app. It’s easy to see a daily Fitbit dashboard in your Tiles as well. Samsung’s watches have Samsung Health, which also integrates more smoothly within the One Watch UI skin Samsung runs over Wear OS 3. Even the old Google Fit Tiles could at least give you a quick visual of how far along you were in your daily goals.

The original Fossil Gen 6 was shafted. While Fossil was still developing the watch, Google and Samsung sprung the news that Wear OS 3 was on the horizon. At the same time as the rest of us, Fossil was found. Then, there was a new, faster chip. The Gen 6 was already on sale, along with the second Wear OS 3 watch, the Galaxy Watch 4. Gen 6 was outdated before it ever hit shelves and that wasn’t Fossil’s fault. Fossil has a native Wear OS 3 watch, the $299 Gen 6 Health Edition, which seems to have got the short end of the stick.

It’s powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 4100+ chipset (with 1 GB of RAM), which isn’t the latest processor, but in a meeting, a company spokesperson enthusiastically reinforced how it’s a newer chip than what Google’s Pixel Watch uses. It does not mean anything like the newer broomsticks in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets did.

The most annoying problem I have with this watch, is the ghost that accompanies it. No, really. It decides to turn on or off the functions every few hours. For example, I don’t want the Gen 6 to ping loudly whenever I get a notification The ringer is set to vibrate only. Yet every so often … ping! The same rings true for the Battery Saver mode, which seems to randomly turn on and cripple some of the watch’s functions. The Always-On display seems to turn on again after every night I try to turn it off, so I have to use tilt to wake again. It is frustrating.

I don’t want to be too negative. There are some niceties this smartwatch has to offer. There’s NFC, and I’ve used it to pay for my subway fare here in New York City. The 1.28-inch screen is bright and colorful, and it is 3 ATM water resistant, so it will hold up in the rain.

I don’t expect much from Fossil on the health and fitness front. This is still a fashion smartwatch, even if it is called the Wellness Edition. So even though my results here were incredibly mixed, I wouldn’t say that’s a major con. As long as you’re aware that these features aren’t the main focus, you can still use this watch for casual health and activity tracking.

It is not enough to design a snazzier design to redeem the Gen 6 lineup. The main thing I was looking for was a better overall experience. I got that, but I ended up with some unexpected annoyances, too.

None of that made the Wellness Edition unusable. It was not normal. Despite occasional stutters, Wear OS 3 was still an improvement. It was so nice to have more third-party apps that actually work. You could use it on Wear OS 2, but the experience wasn’t great. It’s much improved in Wear OS 3 and finally supports offline playlists. Deezer is also a way to use YouTube Music. (Does anyone use Deezer?)

Fossil has a great app, but it is skeleton. It looks pretty, and it’s more than adequate at swapping watchfaces and customizing Tiles. But viewing historical health data is, to put it nicely, unintuitive, and the minimalist data isn’t that useful. Then again, at least you can view health data in the Fossil app at launch. You couldn’t with the Montblanc app when I tested, and I don’t have it anymore to check.

Fossil has a edge over its competitors due to the fact that it has a version of its Wear OS 3 that is compatible with the App Store. But this is more of a philosophical win for people who either double-wield Android and iOS phones or like to switch between the two platforms. iOS loyalists are much more likely to opt for an Apple Watch or maybe a Garmin if they’re really into fitness.

With the display on, I was able to make it to bed before the watch switched on its battery-saving modes. I took the watch off theCharging at 9AM after I had AOD on. By 11:30AM, it was down to 69 percent. I just sat at my desk and boarded the bus to go to work. If AOD was turned off I could get a little more mileage but still have to top off the battery before bed because I wouldn’t want to track sleep.

I was attempting to stretch battery life further by modifying settings, but it lead me to another quirk of the edition. When I stuck it on the charge, it reset my settings. Not every time, but often enough to gaslight me. I always turn off the sound on my watches. My marriage depends on it. My spouse hates all sorts of electronic dings, beeps, and bloops, but they especially hate Fossil watch alerts. The sounds kept returning to normal. I don’t know what it is, and I hope Fossil fixes it in the future.

Too bad that the first time I tried it, the watch said my SpO2 levels were at 83 percent. For context, 95 to 100 percent is considered standard, while anything below 90 percent is reason to seek medical care. Of course, I tried to see if this was a one-off, but the watch then failed to complete several subsequent readings. It kept telling me to wear my watch higher on the wrist and to adjust the strap, but neither seemed to make a difference. I couldn’t have wore it any worse, because it was on the smallest possible strap hole. I rebooted the watch, and that seemed to do the trick, but I still got more errors than I usually do with smartwatch SpO2 readings.

VO2 max was one metric I was looking forward to. But even though I’ve been wearing this watch for over a week, I’ve yet to get a score. Fossil says that you should be able to get a score in about 24 hours, but it might take more than that. I’ve been wearing this watch all day, every day, except for when it’s on the charger or when it dies while I’m out and about. I’m still only 60 percent of the way to a Cardio Fitness score. It’s not unheard of to wait that long to collect enough data for a metric, but it is longer than average for VO2 max.

The poor battery life of thewellness Edition makes it not a good sleep tracker. Even after I went to bed with at least 40%, the watch switched to time-only mode when I woke up. Most other watches suggest a minimum for sleep tracking. The watch cut sleep tracking early, which made my sleep data unreliable. For instance, on a night that my Apple Watch Ultra and Oura Ring tracked 7.5 hours of sleep, the Fossil tracked 4.5 hours. All three devices were around 30–40 percent charged, but only the Fossil failed to make it to the next morning. It doesn’t mean sleep tracking is impossible, just that you need to be more aware of the batteries in your device.

The more expensive watch you can get is the $350 Pixel Watch or the $280GalaxyWatch 5. Both those watches have a more polished version of Wear OS 3, faster processors, better battery life (though it’s a close call with the Pixel Watch), and more robust health features. If you’re willing to pay $50 extra, you can also get cellular connectivity.

Term and Condition Agreements for the Use of Smart Devices: a Case Study for Google Fit, Apple Health Kit, and Amazon Alexa

You must agree to terms andconditions before you can use a smart device. It’s impossible for us to read and analyze every single one of these agreements. But we started counting exactly how many times you have to hit “agree” to use devices when we review them since these are agreements most people don’t read and definitely can’t negotiate.

There are also optional permissions you can grant, including sharing data usage and opting into marketing emails. If you choose to enable the Alexa, you must agree to both Amazon Alexa’s privacy policy and terms of service as well as the Alexa Skill by Fossil’s privacy policy and terms of service. You will also be prompted to grant permissions to allow Alexa to view and edit activity data, device information and settings, heart rate data, SpO2 data, and workout data. You have to agree to the terms if you decide to integrate with either Apple HealthKit or Google Fit.