Verdict
While the Fossil Gen 6 Wellness edition promises to improve the elbow room you could get over your general health and physical fitness , it still take to deliver a good core intercrossed smartwatch experience to make this desirable of a billet on your radiocarpal joint .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
The Fossil Gen 6 Wellness variant is the up-to-the-minute effort from the fashion picket brand to make a wearable that ’s part smartwatch , part traditional timepiece and full something that you ’ll really want to tire .
After debut its take on the hybrid smartwatch concept with the Hybrid HR in 2020 , Fossil set up its Gen 6 Hybrid in 2022 and now it ’s offering a Wellness version of that watch , which bolster the smarts on offer , including automatic workout trailing and the ability to show off more stats than ever on its E - Ink exhibit .
Fossil ’s first hybrid attack was n’t a specially great one , so does the Gen 6 Hybrid Wellness variant show progress for Fossil ’s intercrossed smartwatch ambition ? Here ’s our take .
Design and screen
Like previous Fossil hybrid you do have several instance and color choice here . There are three unlike models in total , including looks for both men and fair sex that are all offer in a individual 45mm - sized stainless brand case option . Those are correspond up with 20 mm , removable straps and you could pick up a skillful array of additional prescribed strap if you need to mix up that look . I had the black silicone polymer and mat smuggled case combo to live with , which does feel well made and does find typically Fossil in looks and build .
Front and meat is a 1.1 - in , E - Ink display that is n’t a touchscreen and is the same - sized blind as the one include on the original Hybrid HR . That E - Ink screen door has a solidifying of parallel hand drape across it that move out of the manner when you involve to interact with the gimmick and catch something on the display behind it .
Surrounding that display is quite a sizable bezel , something of which I ’d by all odds like to see less of and a mo more display instead , which would help to hold the step-up in stats Fossil does endeavor to pressure on here .
There ’s a few benefit for proceed for due east - Ink over a full colour touchscreen . It ’s less of a pig on stamp battery life and offers reproducible visibility performance indoors and outdoors , with Fossil also including a backlight that ’s activated when you double tapdance the watch screen .
To control that display , you ’ll want to expend the crown and the accompany button buttons , of which you may customise to open and launch different features .
On the durability front , you ’re not getting something here that ’s fit for shower or swim . Like Fossil ’s premature hybrids it ’s got a 3ATM rated design , which means it ’s suitable to handle some sweat and light rain , but not much else .
Software and smartwatch features
On newspaper , the Gen 6 has a pretty impressive array of smartwatch features at its disposal . It might not be fall apart OS or Apple Watch - level of smarts , but it should be enough to gratify most people .
It turn tail on a proprietary bone as counterbalance to Google ’s Wear OS , and is all set up using the Fossil Smartwatches earphone app which thankfully has been apply a bit of a clean up .
Along with the ability to pick and make your own watch faces , Fossil includes a new Wellness face , which crams in more stats like step count forward motion , a sleep trailing caliber and heart charge per unit is a footstep in the correct direction as far making that watch face more useful . The problem is that everything feels cramp and busy and it ’s shout for a enceinte CRT screen to let things spread out .
Pressing the main watch crown scram you into the main menu screen , while using the nearby buttons will let you move between unlike feature film . The reactivity of those buttons and the process of moving around the UI can at times , feel a feeling slow .
For feature like music control , viewing notifications and weather forecasts , thing do n’t feel greatly optimize to that E - Ink screen and much like the new watch nerve , they feel cramped . There ’s a microphone on board to enable Amazon Alexa integration , but it will only exhibit reaction and it ’s hit and miss in term of picking up those queries on the first attempt or delivering a reply at all .
dodo needs to do a better chore of merging those forcible buttons into the experience and perhaps integrate a rotating crown to navigate through menus . The screen want to get braggy too , because even when those analogue hands move out of the way , it ’s a bit messy how data is exhibit on it .
Fitness tracking
With ‘ Wellness ’ in its name , Fossil ’s Hybrid watch incorporates health conspicuously into its tracking features . There ’s an optical sensor in the caseback to tail heart rate and SpO2 level continuously . These are not medically certified features however , so it ’s really about giving you a common sense of your general welfare .
There are sensors onboard to track daily step counts and slumber , and there are workout modes to track activities like running , spinning , hiking and indoor rowing but stop dead of adding any sort of GPS , whether make - in or the attached kind that bank on your telephone ’s GPS . Fossil does summate an automatic exercise tracking mode to take the thought out of manually tracking that workout time as well .
The problem I instantly ascertain is that barring the quite crammed new wellness dial to coup d’oeil at your onward motion , I find myself looking inside of the fellow traveller headphone app to see stats for matter like step counts or sleep because it ’s either vaguely presented or a chore to jab deep into the menus on the ticker itself .
From an truth point of survey , the daily step enumeration be given to be around 1,000 steps out of Garmin and theOura Ring 3 ’s step tracking , and on some days it reported very low-down tally . It fare a bit better with resting eye rate datum where it broadly matched up to the resting 60 minutes stats from Garmin , though actual - prison term readings were broadly speaking posting in high spirits by as much as 20 bpm . Blood oxygen readings were generally within a few percent of a pulsation oximeter and Oura ’s tracking , though the datum is n’t exactly put to any meaningful use or circumstance .
For sleep trailing , Fossil is predict to cut across eternal sleep length whilst also breaking down your awake , light and deep sleep stages along with tracking heart charge per unit during sleep as well . Sleep duration in worldwide was mostly in line with the sleep duration get by Oura and Garmin ’s rest tracking . Sleep stage breakdown were never indistinguishable with those other devices but deep and wanton stages were roughly in the same ballpark .
When it comes to playing sports watch , I ’m not sure this is something most will get a lot of economic consumption out of . The deficiency of any GPS support makes the idea of tracking outdoor run and hikes completely spare . On a few runs , the distance tracking was off from a Garmin watch and while average spunk pace interpretation were broadly consistent with a heart rate monitoring machine dresser strap , the maximum readings read richly in compare . Calorie sunburn estimation in ecumenical were moderately low for some jolly vivid workouts as well . The other job is finding out where that give chase datum actually hold up because I still ca n’t find where that information is hive away , or maybe it simply is n’t lay in at all . It ’s all very mussy .
The automatic physical exertion detection seemed to work well for walks and runs , but it also manage to recognize some distinctly non - workout related action as exercise too , so it ’s not faultless .
It ’s a good daily activity tracker than a sports vigil that ’s for certain , but not all data is particularly accurate on that front either . As far as motivating you to move , there ’s nothing really beyond some inactiveness warning signal , and you’re able to find those on trackers that cost considerably less .
Battery life
Unlike Fossil ’s Wear OS - based smartwatches , its loanblend watch can go for weeks as opposed to days . There ’s no mogul - sapping AMOLED display or big trailing sensors like GPS , and it care to have continuous middle pace and SpO2 tracking without really indent that electric battery .
Fossil suppose you’re able to get up to two weeks of battery aliveness , which is the same hope as its previous hybrids . I ’d say based on my examination that it can well get through a week and then some . If you ’re not using features like workout tracking and receive steady notifications , then that daily shelling drop cloth - off is small and shows its ability to go longer . Without workout tracking , the battery fall off was around 3 % . With workout tracking in use of goods and services for an hour a Clarence Shepard Day Jr. , stamp battery drop run to be 5 % .
When the bombardment does run wry it can charge up middling snappily but stops abruptly of offering any sorting of fast charging capabilities . An minute spent on its turn on provenience will get you from 0 - 80 % , which should be enough to get you through over another workweek of exercise .
Latest deals
Should you buy it?
With the improvement Fossil has made with the watch , the Wellness version is much more attractive as a physical fitness tracker . Even if some scrap of information are n’t quite up to scratch .
Fossil still needs to do a lot of work with the software , develop the screen and the experience in general to make this hybrid smartwatch you really desire to inhabit with .
Final Thoughts
I really want the Fossil Gen 6 to be a undecomposed intercrossed smartwatch because there are things it does get right here . It look and feel like a nice timepiece , the shelling is strong even with uninterrupted monitoring in consumption and there ’s something quite nice about having an E - Ink presentation as well . Fundamentally though , how it all comes together exit you scratching your head . Yes , you may now chase more , but it needs to get some of the smartwatch basics right first before scaling up on the smarts .
For a more competent intercrossed experience , you ’d be better suited with theGarmin Vivomove Trendor theWithings ScanWatch .
Trusted Score
How we test
We thoroughly test every smartwatch we review . We use industriousness standard examination to compare features right and we apply the watch as our master equipment over the review full point . We ’ll always tell you what we find and we never , ever , take money to go over a product .
FAQs
Yes , you may read text substance on the Fossil Gen 6 Hybrid Wellness edition once you ’ve start the Calls and Messages notification inside of the Fossil Smartwatches earpiece app .
Yes , you may change scout faces or dial on the Fossil Gen 6 Hybrid Wellness edition . you could prefer a raw scout font or create your own from the My Watch section in the Fossil Smartwatches phone app .
Full Specs
Sustainability
TrustedReviews ’ hold the fact that global thawing is not a myth as a essence value and will continuously endeavour to help protect our major planet from hurt in its commercial enterprise practices .
As part of this missionary work , whenever we review a product we ship the company a series of questions to help us gauge and make see-through the encroachment the twist has on the environment .
We currently have n’t received answers to the query on this product , but will update this Sir Frederick Handley Page the moment we do . you could see a elaborate equipment failure of the question we postulate and why in oursustainability info Thomas Nelson Page .
