This is pretty good value for the money it costs. Accurate readings, attractive design.
The OS is a bit of a dog though. Its functional, but a bit clunky, confusing and slow. Imagine going back to using an older touch screen phone. It works but its just not as slick or responsive as a modern phone.
As such, I liked but didn’t love this and stopped using after a month or so. I bought an apple watch and whist it was no more accurate for readings, it was so nice to use in comparison it encouraged me to use it more
This smartwatch is perfect for anyone who wants to be connected at all times without having to break the bank for a smartwatch. At a very affordable price, you get a watch running Wear OS, which is uncommon at this price point.
The battery life is perfect, where you can easily last a day and at most times you can easily get two days with one full charge.
It does everything you want it to, send notifications from your phone, pay using its NFC functionality and many more.
The only real issue I have is the sometimes random glitches where it freezes for a few seconds, apart from that, this is a very reasonably priced smartwatch that I believe more people should give a go to. Perfect!
Works well in tandem with my Pixel 3. It’s quite easy to set up and download apps onto the watch and select watchfaces. Functionality is great and it’s simple to view and respond to notifications from the watch touchscreen. Only downside is there isn’t much storage capacity, battery only lasts a day and the watch can be very slow and unresponsive at times.
The battery life is very poor however as I got the watch brand new for 89 it still is a fantastic way to step into a smart watch if you’ve never had one before without risking a lot of cash.
Over all I really like the watch and fine it very nice to use. It isn’t slow and the fact the hardware buttons can be customised is great.
The Fossil Sports watch has a quality build to it. The battery can last a couple of days if switched off overnight – using Bluetooth, location and heart beat tracking. Takes less than an hour to charge back up so not a problem. Can switch on NFC to use Google Pay as required. Heart beat tracked in background to give high, low value plus other options in Google Fit. Only lag noticed is when accessing Google Play to download/update apps everything else is OK.
At the reduced price of 89 is good value for the quality of the watch.
This is my 3rd smart watch (Moto 360, Huawei W1) and the Fossil Sport is good with a nice interface and the apps all run ok however to get the best battery life out of the device I would suggest turning off the GPS (unless you really need it) and turn the always on screen and the you will get about a day out of it.
It’s feels very light compared to the Huawei W1 and the screen is clearer – it’s missing a speaker but I never used that on my devices not much of a miss. I think for 89 it’s very value indeed
If you debloat the watch and customise the settings a bit you can get decent performance out of it with pretty decent battery even with the always on display, easily got 2 days out of it, the best feature for me is the convenient tap and pay functionality. Biggest downside to me is that the watch shouldn’t come with so many useless apps especially when it has limited storage and ram.
Can’t really say alot bad about this watch especially for the price range it’s pretty much bang on. Easy to use and feels well made the physical buttons and winder have a quality solid feel to it. Ultimately most people (In my own opinion) expect probably a little too much from these devices. They are a companion for your phone and what it does it does well unlimited watch faces pretty much using the appropriate application from Google play store and nice customisation features for each face make it just that little bit better. This leads to my second point.
Within the internal system there is an app that is disabled by default. Probably not to be found too easily but with a little looking you can find an app called MK Access. This is the launcher for the considerably more expensive watch by the well known fashion company by the initials of MK. Now considering the price difference between the two “different” watchs it’s safe to say that this is worth it. I have actually activated the app and low and behold my fossil watch becomes a VERY much more expensive watch by the well OTHER well known brand of posh watches. Make what you want of that but its a good watch and sold for alot more by seemingly another brand with just an application to change the interface. Save your money get this and buy a fancy strap. Sorted.
This is a lovely watch as long as you don’t keep playing with it or the battery will not last 24hrs. I found the purchase of a better charger on a stand allows me to charge the watch when having a shower etc. The charge time is very short so battery life has not been a problem. I found the ability to download android apps really useful . I have to admit I have returned the watch and purchased a later generation with more storage and a speaker. It suits me better but of course it was a lot more expensive.
I really love this watch. Having owned it for just over a month, I am very pleased with the performance and how it looks!
I wanted a watch which was built around Wear OS (the Google platform for smartwatches which replaced Android Wear in 2018), and had considered a number of other brands such as Ticwatch (S2) and Huawei (Watch 2).
I have it paired with my Galaxy S9, and have set it up with mainly Google based apps (Google Fit etc.)
Design – The watch looks great, it is much smaller on the wrist compared with other smart watches! The 3 buttons on the side function nicely, 2 of these can be customised to fit your needs (i.e. launch Google Fit or launch the timer app).
Battery Life – I charge my watch for approx 60 minutes every morning, and the watch still has approx 20% by the next morning. (NOTE I have turned off certain functions to maximise the battery life)
Performance – The watch is simple to use & intuitive! The only slow down in performance that I have noticed is when you are in the Google Play Store (app store) and you want to download new apps. Also, I have found that some of the watch faces do not perform well, when compared to the Pulse Digital I have opted for.
Apps – I have added a number of apps inc; Spotify / Messenger (facebook) / Uber / Messages (google SMS) / Strava
NOTE – When reading this review, please know two things;
1) This i my first smart watch so have no base line to compare against.
2) The first unit I was sent was faulty. The performance was terrible, and kept crashing after 3 system reboots. Amazon replaced this unit next day, and since then, no issues!
First considerations:
I am using an Android phone – Pixel 2 XL.
I am wearing it everyday for the last three months.
Pros:
-Lightweight (I dont like heavy whatches, this one is perfect, sometimes I even forget that I am wearing it)
-Very comfortable
-Aluminium body
-Water resistant 5ATM
-Best chipset of the market Quallcomm 3100
-Untherthered GPS (which means the watch doesnt need to be connected to your phone in order to get the GPS signal, so you can leave your phone at home, although it is not desirable because it will drain the battery twice faster, so always try to record your tracks on your phone using your watch as a “remote control”)
-Charges extremely quickly
Cons:
– Price
– Not exactly suitable for avid runners (it is slow compared to premium watches and is not as accurate, however if you are an occasional runner and want the convenience of a wear OS you’ll be fine)
– Bluetooth issues (sometimes it simply “forgets” the previously connected phone and it starts sending random pairing codes to my phone that never matches, so I need to restart both devices and do all the process over again. It happened at least 3 times and in one occasion it was so bad that I had to return it to factory settings – Occurance: roughly once a month)
– Poor battery (well this is a very delicate subject, it depends on your use. You can choose from a list which apps you want to be notified by, however the more apps you choose, the more often your phone need to communicate with your watch and consequently faster the battery will drain. Also if you use apps that uses GPS like google maps, google fit, etc they will demand more from the battery. I use an app called viewranger which you can download the maps to your watch so you can use it offline and also you can record your workouts on your phone, greatly improving the battery range. Most of the days at the bedtime it is between 50% and 30%, when I use it to record workouts it is reduced to around 10% and if I use the untethered GPS sometimes it doesnt last the full workout, loosing all my progress 🙁 so, only go out when the battery is 100% for your workouts using the untethered feature.
-Automatic recording feature inaccurate (sometimes it records randomly walks that doesnt exist, probably due to poor gps signal – occurance: 5% of records)
This is my first smartwatch so I cant compare to other options on the market but I am very happy with it. One thing that is important to bear in mind that a smartwatch is no supposed to be a smartphone itself in terms of performance but act like a “remote control” of your phone giving youonly the vital information you need without the “inconvenience” of pulling your phone out everytime you want to see a notification, distance, weather forecast etc. I saw some people complainig about the performance when using the watch to play games, WHAT? Why? Use your phone instead.
I’ve had the Fossil Sport now for a couple of days after my Ticwatch S broke and decided on the Fossil as a worthy replacement, mostly because it’s one of only a few smartwatches out at the moment with the new Snapdragon 3100 processor. If your main concern is battery life then look somewhere else, because indeed the Sport will get you through the day, but expect to charge it pretty much every day or so. However after doing some research I got to the conclusion that the only way to get better battery life is to give up functionalities to some extent, which to me defies the purpose of a smartwatch. I’m used to charging my phone every day and to me it’s not a problem to charge the watch as well at the same time. In return I get the full Wear OS functionalities (watch notifications and replies for all the apps on my phone being the one I use the most), good performance (I haven’t had any lag issues so far), and a light design. The dial button is a nice option to scroll through the menus and I like having the extra buttons too (both of which my Ticwatch was missing). I wasn’t sure about the look first, but it’s growing on me and even if I tend to prefer bigger watches I do like the look of it now, plus I can always decide to change the strap in the future (which was the reason I had to replace my previous smartwatch as the strap was not removable and once it broke there was no way of just buying a new one and replace it myself). Overall I’m very happy with the product, particularly for the price range (around 186 for the 43mm blue model as I write this). If you don’t mind charging it every 1-2 day I definitely recommend it!
This is my first smart watch. I find it very comfortable, the strap is smooth and a perfect fit.
The apps that are available are pretty decent for WearOS which is why I wanted a wearOS watch.
The overall screen quality is great. I notice there are some delays when going through the menu etc and after I found a guide online, I went into the developer settings and disabled some animations and it’s super fast now.
The only downside I can mention is the battery. It’s very poor and the first two days of use I didn’t even make it 6 to 7 hours before my battery went into power saving mode. Power svaing mode only will show the clock and no other options will work.
I found that tweaking the settings to disable tilt wake etc allow it to run to a full days use but still, it makes you cautious of your use in order to not run out of charge.
At the time of me writing this review (May 2019) the Fossil Sport is probably THE best Wear OS watch you can get. It utilises the latest Snapdragon Wear 3100 chipset which is the first watch to do so. That promises better battery life and better performance. However, all is not as good as you might hope for and if you read my review, you will see that it suffers with various issues and whilst it has some plus points over the new Samsung Galaxy Watch Active, in other areas, it dissapoints.
To start with, this is a nice looking watch. It is available in 2 sizes: 41mm or 43mm. Even though I have skinny wrists, I went for the larger 43mm one as that one was on offer on Amazon at 20 less than the smaller one! Normally, I would have gone for the 41mm one as I wear the Galaxy Watch Active as my daily smartwatch and that is 40mm. That said, I sometimes think the Galaxy is a little small and I actually think that the 43mm looks fine on my wrists. It is a good size. It is also VERY light. Unlike the solid feel of the Samsung, this watch is nylon and aluminium. The strap is supremely comfy and once on, you really can’t feel you’re wearing a watch. I was surprised how light it felt.
Setup is easy. If you have done any other Wear OS watches, you’ll be at home. If not, download the Wear OS app from the Google Play story, turn the watch on and follow the pairing instructions and off you go, copying your accounts and settings from your phone to your watch. The whole process takes about 5 minutes.
Once the watch starts up, the first of my issues becomes aparent. The watch faces are dull. I mean there really was no effort put in to these at all – which is both a surprise and a dissapointment considering that Fossil are the largest manufacturer of Wear OS watches! Of course, with Wear OS, you can download a million other watch faces, but I like to use the supplied ones as I feel they are meant to go with the watch and showcase it’s features. The display is also not very bright on it’s auto setting. I struggled to read it in bright sunlight and had to select the sunlight boost option and turn the brightness up. Even then, compared to my Galaxy Watch Active, the screen wasn’t as bright or as vivid.
Navigating the watch is very easy. There are 3 buttons, with the main middle button for accessing the apps or going back. This crown button also rotates so that you can scroll up and down a list of apps, or if you are reading a text message or email, you can scroll up and down through that too. That is a nice feature. Not unique, but I prefer it to Samsungs rotating bezel which they chose to leave off their latest watch which is now touch only. The buttons are quite stiff to press and when you do, there is a reasuring click to them. You certainly wouldn’t be able to accidentally catch them on your shirt sleve which is a good thing.
Fitness-wise, the step tracker seemed pretty accurate and kept in step with my Galaxy Watch Active when I tried them side by side. Likewise, the heart rate monitor did too. However, the Galaxy constantly monitors heart rate, whereas the Fossil Sport only monitors every 20 mins. This will be to preserve battery life (more on that in a moment) and I’m sure there will be a setting I haven’t found to turn it on permanently if you wish.
Perhaps one of the biggest drawbacks is a feature missing that I didn’t even know I needed until I had it. This watch doesn’t do automatic fitness tracking. Like I said, I didn’t know I needed that, until I got the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active. Now if I go for a run, or walk or whatever, the watch detects it and starts tracking me. I am then rewarded with “That was a good walk” and it presents me with my stats. How many times in the past have I gone for a walk or a run only to remember half way through that I didn’t start my fitness tracker! That isn’t an issue with the Samsung, but it is a feature that is sadly lacking on this top spec “Sport” watch. Maybe a future software update will sort it, if it has the hardware capability.
On to battery life: I’ve had mixed results if I’m honest. The latest chipset promised improvements in battery life, but I’m just not seeing it. The watch has sometimes failed to last a full day during my testing of it. Going for a run, reading notifications, playing with settings. I can be down to 10% be the end of the day. I can confidently say that a day is doable, but I’d struggle to get 2 days in normal use unless you turn the “always on” screen feature off and don’t use the GPS much. It’s off my default on the Samsung and you don’t have an option for “always on”, so thats one plus point in favour of the Fossil. Unlike the Samsung, there is a proper battery saver mode that turns off all sensors and notifications and behaves just like a normal digital watch. If you are down to 10%, you can eek out many more hours with that turned on and from a full charge, it will apparently last a month – but I don’t have the paitence to test that I’m afraid! 🙂
When it does run low, charging is quick. But it doesn’t support wireless charging – or rather, it doesn’t come with a wireless charger. It comes with a magnetic charger which has pins that contact the bottom of the watch. There are pros and cons here. Wireless charging is slower, which is probably why this watch charges so quickly. But I like wireless charging. Pins or pads can get tarnished or dirty over time and stop making contact. There have been no reports of this as the watch is so new. Hopefully it won’t suffer from it. Time will tell.
One of the killer sports features is its waterproofness. Is that a word? It’s water resistant to 5ATM or 50m which is easily enough for swimming. That’s what I want out of a smartwatch and is the reason I bought the Galaxy Watch Active. I don’t want to have to take my watch off when I go paddleboarding or kayaking, just in case I fall in. I want to leave it on. I can with these 2 watches.
I’ve also had some issues downloading apps for this watch. I’ve struggled to get the Google Play store to connect and when it does, an app I download will say “download pending”. I have factory reset the watch and re-paired it but it’s still happening. The watch is clearly connected to the phone ok as I get my notifications and I can use Google on the watch to look things up. I haven’t had chance to test this watch on another phone to see if it is the phone that doesn’t like the watch (or vice-versa) or if there is some other issue. If I suss it out, I’ll update this review.
So finally, if you were in the market for a “Sports” smartwatch (by sports I mean, waterproof with good fitness tracking and not too bulky on the wrist), should you go for the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active or the Fossil Sport? They are both a similar price with similar features, but both watches have some good points and some bad points. I have both, so this is my 2 pence:
If you have a Samsung phone, absolutely get the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active. No question about it. It is slightly smaller, has a better screen, has better fitness tracking capabilities, always on heart rate monitoring and if you have a S9/S10 you can monitor your blood pressure and check for fibrilation. If you don’t have a Samsung phone, then the Samsung watch lacks some features. You will still get email notifications, but once cleared, there is no email app on the watch as it only integrates with the Samsung email app on the phone. Same applies for SMS. You also need to install about 3 different bits of software on your phone to get the watch to work, you don’t need to if you have a Samsung phone. If you don’t have a Samsung phone and you aren’t bothered about the automatic fitness tracking of the Samsung OR you want Google Pay on your wrist rather than Samsung Pay, then the Fossil watch is for you. If you aren’t near a charger, the Fossil watch will also last much longer when put in to battery saver mode.
Me? Well I have a Huawei phone. So I don’t get the email app on the Watch Active (I do on the Fossil Sport). I don’t get the SMS app on the Watch Active (again, I do on the Fossil Sport). I can’t use Samsung Pay on my Watch Active as my bank (Halifax) doesn’t support it, I can only use Google Pay as supported by the Fossil. Yet, despite all this, I much prefer the Galaxy Watch Active. The battery lasts longer, the interface (Tizen OS) is smoother with less lag than the Fossil using Wear OS even on the latest processor and I love the automatic fitness tracking.
Sorry Fossil! I really think you watch is being let down by buggy software and until Google improve Wear OS, I’m sticking with Samsung.
Some pictures of the two watches side by side. Hope that helps someone.
Great watch let down by poor battery life the laggy OS
This is a very nice smart watch and seems very well made. The strap material is so nice and soft, the watch itself looks clean and simple. The watch dial is really nice to have and works well.
But, it looks lost on a big wrist. The screen is too small. (Unless I had been sent a smaller version?) Not sure Why Fossil have not filled the full available space to the outer rim bezel. It makes it seem very small indeed. And when a screen does not fill the space its obvious when its not perfectly in the middle.
I think if the watch was a bit bigger with a bigger screen it could then suit someone with large wrists. Seems to suit a more slender wrist in my opinion.
Not really played with many features of this Wear OS watch
This is pretty good value for the money it costs. Accurate readings, attractive design.
The OS is a bit of a dog though. Its functional, but a bit clunky, confusing and slow. Imagine going back to using an older touch screen phone. It works but its just not as slick or responsive as a modern phone.
As such, I liked but didn’t love this and stopped using after a month or so. I bought an apple watch and whist it was no more accurate for readings, it was so nice to use in comparison it encouraged me to use it more
This smartwatch is perfect for anyone who wants to be connected at all times without having to break the bank for a smartwatch. At a very affordable price, you get a watch running Wear OS, which is uncommon at this price point.
The battery life is perfect, where you can easily last a day and at most times you can easily get two days with one full charge.
It does everything you want it to, send notifications from your phone, pay using its NFC functionality and many more.
The only real issue I have is the sometimes random glitches where it freezes for a few seconds, apart from that, this is a very reasonably priced smartwatch that I believe more people should give a go to. Perfect!
Works well in tandem with my Pixel 3. It’s quite easy to set up and download apps onto the watch and select watchfaces. Functionality is great and it’s simple to view and respond to notifications from the watch touchscreen. Only downside is there isn’t much storage capacity, battery only lasts a day and the watch can be very slow and unresponsive at times.
The battery life is very poor however as I got the watch brand new for 89 it still is a fantastic way to step into a smart watch if you’ve never had one before without risking a lot of cash.
Over all I really like the watch and fine it very nice to use. It isn’t slow and the fact the hardware buttons can be customised is great.
The Fossil Sports watch has a quality build to it. The battery can last a couple of days if switched off overnight – using Bluetooth, location and heart beat tracking. Takes less than an hour to charge back up so not a problem. Can switch on NFC to use Google Pay as required. Heart beat tracked in background to give high, low value plus other options in Google Fit. Only lag noticed is when accessing Google Play to download/update apps everything else is OK.
At the reduced price of 89 is good value for the quality of the watch.
It’s feels very light compared to the Huawei W1 and the screen is clearer – it’s missing a speaker but I never used that on my devices not much of a miss. I think for 89 it’s very value indeed
If you debloat the watch and customise the settings a bit you can get decent performance out of it with pretty decent battery even with the always on display, easily got 2 days out of it, the best feature for me is the convenient tap and pay functionality. Biggest downside to me is that the watch shouldn’t come with so many useless apps especially when it has limited storage and ram.
Within the internal system there is an app that is disabled by default. Probably not to be found too easily but with a little looking you can find an app called MK Access. This is the launcher for the considerably more expensive watch by the well known fashion company by the initials of MK. Now considering the price difference between the two “different” watchs it’s safe to say that this is worth it. I have actually activated the app and low and behold my fossil watch becomes a VERY much more expensive watch by the well OTHER well known brand of posh watches. Make what you want of that but its a good watch and sold for alot more by seemingly another brand with just an application to change the interface. Save your money get this and buy a fancy strap. Sorted.
This is a lovely watch as long as you don’t keep playing with it or the battery will not last 24hrs. I found the purchase of a better charger on a stand allows me to charge the watch when having a shower etc. The charge time is very short so battery life has not been a problem. I found the ability to download android apps really useful . I have to admit I have returned the watch and purchased a later generation with more storage and a speaker. It suits me better but of course it was a lot more expensive.
I wanted a watch which was built around Wear OS (the Google platform for smartwatches which replaced Android Wear in 2018), and had considered a number of other brands such as Ticwatch (S2) and Huawei (Watch 2).
I have it paired with my Galaxy S9, and have set it up with mainly Google based apps (Google Fit etc.)
Design – The watch looks great, it is much smaller on the wrist compared with other smart watches! The 3 buttons on the side function nicely, 2 of these can be customised to fit your needs (i.e. launch Google Fit or launch the timer app).
Battery Life – I charge my watch for approx 60 minutes every morning, and the watch still has approx 20% by the next morning. (NOTE I have turned off certain functions to maximise the battery life)
Performance – The watch is simple to use & intuitive! The only slow down in performance that I have noticed is when you are in the Google Play Store (app store) and you want to download new apps. Also, I have found that some of the watch faces do not perform well, when compared to the Pulse Digital I have opted for.
Apps – I have added a number of apps inc; Spotify / Messenger (facebook) / Uber / Messages (google SMS) / Strava
NOTE – When reading this review, please know two things;
1) This i my first smart watch so have no base line to compare against.
2) The first unit I was sent was faulty. The performance was terrible, and kept crashing after 3 system reboots. Amazon replaced this unit next day, and since then, no issues!
I am using an Android phone – Pixel 2 XL.
I am wearing it everyday for the last three months.
Pros:
-Lightweight (I dont like heavy whatches, this one is perfect, sometimes I even forget that I am wearing it)
-Very comfortable
-Aluminium body
-Water resistant 5ATM
-Best chipset of the market Quallcomm 3100
-Untherthered GPS (which means the watch doesnt need to be connected to your phone in order to get the GPS signal, so you can leave your phone at home, although it is not desirable because it will drain the battery twice faster, so always try to record your tracks on your phone using your watch as a “remote control”)
-Charges extremely quickly
Cons:
– Price
– Not exactly suitable for avid runners (it is slow compared to premium watches and is not as accurate, however if you are an occasional runner and want the convenience of a wear OS you’ll be fine)
– Bluetooth issues (sometimes it simply “forgets” the previously connected phone and it starts sending random pairing codes to my phone that never matches, so I need to restart both devices and do all the process over again. It happened at least 3 times and in one occasion it was so bad that I had to return it to factory settings – Occurance: roughly once a month)
– Poor battery (well this is a very delicate subject, it depends on your use. You can choose from a list which apps you want to be notified by, however the more apps you choose, the more often your phone need to communicate with your watch and consequently faster the battery will drain. Also if you use apps that uses GPS like google maps, google fit, etc they will demand more from the battery. I use an app called viewranger which you can download the maps to your watch so you can use it offline and also you can record your workouts on your phone, greatly improving the battery range. Most of the days at the bedtime it is between 50% and 30%, when I use it to record workouts it is reduced to around 10% and if I use the untethered GPS sometimes it doesnt last the full workout, loosing all my progress 🙁 so, only go out when the battery is 100% for your workouts using the untethered feature.
-Automatic recording feature inaccurate (sometimes it records randomly walks that doesnt exist, probably due to poor gps signal – occurance: 5% of records)
This is my first smartwatch so I cant compare to other options on the market but I am very happy with it. One thing that is important to bear in mind that a smartwatch is no supposed to be a smartphone itself in terms of performance but act like a “remote control” of your phone giving youonly the vital information you need without the “inconvenience” of pulling your phone out everytime you want to see a notification, distance, weather forecast etc. I saw some people complainig about the performance when using the watch to play games, WHAT? Why? Use your phone instead.
This is my first smart watch. I find it very comfortable, the strap is smooth and a perfect fit.
The apps that are available are pretty decent for WearOS which is why I wanted a wearOS watch.
The overall screen quality is great. I notice there are some delays when going through the menu etc and after I found a guide online, I went into the developer settings and disabled some animations and it’s super fast now.
The only downside I can mention is the battery. It’s very poor and the first two days of use I didn’t even make it 6 to 7 hours before my battery went into power saving mode. Power svaing mode only will show the clock and no other options will work.
I found that tweaking the settings to disable tilt wake etc allow it to run to a full days use but still, it makes you cautious of your use in order to not run out of charge.
Overall it is fantastic
To start with, this is a nice looking watch. It is available in 2 sizes: 41mm or 43mm. Even though I have skinny wrists, I went for the larger 43mm one as that one was on offer on Amazon at 20 less than the smaller one! Normally, I would have gone for the 41mm one as I wear the Galaxy Watch Active as my daily smartwatch and that is 40mm. That said, I sometimes think the Galaxy is a little small and I actually think that the 43mm looks fine on my wrists. It is a good size. It is also VERY light. Unlike the solid feel of the Samsung, this watch is nylon and aluminium. The strap is supremely comfy and once on, you really can’t feel you’re wearing a watch. I was surprised how light it felt.
Setup is easy. If you have done any other Wear OS watches, you’ll be at home. If not, download the Wear OS app from the Google Play story, turn the watch on and follow the pairing instructions and off you go, copying your accounts and settings from your phone to your watch. The whole process takes about 5 minutes.
Once the watch starts up, the first of my issues becomes aparent. The watch faces are dull. I mean there really was no effort put in to these at all – which is both a surprise and a dissapointment considering that Fossil are the largest manufacturer of Wear OS watches! Of course, with Wear OS, you can download a million other watch faces, but I like to use the supplied ones as I feel they are meant to go with the watch and showcase it’s features. The display is also not very bright on it’s auto setting. I struggled to read it in bright sunlight and had to select the sunlight boost option and turn the brightness up. Even then, compared to my Galaxy Watch Active, the screen wasn’t as bright or as vivid.
Navigating the watch is very easy. There are 3 buttons, with the main middle button for accessing the apps or going back. This crown button also rotates so that you can scroll up and down a list of apps, or if you are reading a text message or email, you can scroll up and down through that too. That is a nice feature. Not unique, but I prefer it to Samsungs rotating bezel which they chose to leave off their latest watch which is now touch only. The buttons are quite stiff to press and when you do, there is a reasuring click to them. You certainly wouldn’t be able to accidentally catch them on your shirt sleve which is a good thing.
Fitness-wise, the step tracker seemed pretty accurate and kept in step with my Galaxy Watch Active when I tried them side by side. Likewise, the heart rate monitor did too. However, the Galaxy constantly monitors heart rate, whereas the Fossil Sport only monitors every 20 mins. This will be to preserve battery life (more on that in a moment) and I’m sure there will be a setting I haven’t found to turn it on permanently if you wish.
Perhaps one of the biggest drawbacks is a feature missing that I didn’t even know I needed until I had it. This watch doesn’t do automatic fitness tracking. Like I said, I didn’t know I needed that, until I got the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active. Now if I go for a run, or walk or whatever, the watch detects it and starts tracking me. I am then rewarded with “That was a good walk” and it presents me with my stats. How many times in the past have I gone for a walk or a run only to remember half way through that I didn’t start my fitness tracker! That isn’t an issue with the Samsung, but it is a feature that is sadly lacking on this top spec “Sport” watch. Maybe a future software update will sort it, if it has the hardware capability.
On to battery life: I’ve had mixed results if I’m honest. The latest chipset promised improvements in battery life, but I’m just not seeing it. The watch has sometimes failed to last a full day during my testing of it. Going for a run, reading notifications, playing with settings. I can be down to 10% be the end of the day. I can confidently say that a day is doable, but I’d struggle to get 2 days in normal use unless you turn the “always on” screen feature off and don’t use the GPS much. It’s off my default on the Samsung and you don’t have an option for “always on”, so thats one plus point in favour of the Fossil. Unlike the Samsung, there is a proper battery saver mode that turns off all sensors and notifications and behaves just like a normal digital watch. If you are down to 10%, you can eek out many more hours with that turned on and from a full charge, it will apparently last a month – but I don’t have the paitence to test that I’m afraid! 🙂
When it does run low, charging is quick. But it doesn’t support wireless charging – or rather, it doesn’t come with a wireless charger. It comes with a magnetic charger which has pins that contact the bottom of the watch. There are pros and cons here. Wireless charging is slower, which is probably why this watch charges so quickly. But I like wireless charging. Pins or pads can get tarnished or dirty over time and stop making contact. There have been no reports of this as the watch is so new. Hopefully it won’t suffer from it. Time will tell.
One of the killer sports features is its waterproofness. Is that a word? It’s water resistant to 5ATM or 50m which is easily enough for swimming. That’s what I want out of a smartwatch and is the reason I bought the Galaxy Watch Active. I don’t want to have to take my watch off when I go paddleboarding or kayaking, just in case I fall in. I want to leave it on. I can with these 2 watches.
I’ve also had some issues downloading apps for this watch. I’ve struggled to get the Google Play store to connect and when it does, an app I download will say “download pending”. I have factory reset the watch and re-paired it but it’s still happening. The watch is clearly connected to the phone ok as I get my notifications and I can use Google on the watch to look things up. I haven’t had chance to test this watch on another phone to see if it is the phone that doesn’t like the watch (or vice-versa) or if there is some other issue. If I suss it out, I’ll update this review.
So finally, if you were in the market for a “Sports” smartwatch (by sports I mean, waterproof with good fitness tracking and not too bulky on the wrist), should you go for the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active or the Fossil Sport? They are both a similar price with similar features, but both watches have some good points and some bad points. I have both, so this is my 2 pence:
If you have a Samsung phone, absolutely get the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active. No question about it. It is slightly smaller, has a better screen, has better fitness tracking capabilities, always on heart rate monitoring and if you have a S9/S10 you can monitor your blood pressure and check for fibrilation. If you don’t have a Samsung phone, then the Samsung watch lacks some features. You will still get email notifications, but once cleared, there is no email app on the watch as it only integrates with the Samsung email app on the phone. Same applies for SMS. You also need to install about 3 different bits of software on your phone to get the watch to work, you don’t need to if you have a Samsung phone. If you don’t have a Samsung phone and you aren’t bothered about the automatic fitness tracking of the Samsung OR you want Google Pay on your wrist rather than Samsung Pay, then the Fossil watch is for you. If you aren’t near a charger, the Fossil watch will also last much longer when put in to battery saver mode.
Me? Well I have a Huawei phone. So I don’t get the email app on the Watch Active (I do on the Fossil Sport). I don’t get the SMS app on the Watch Active (again, I do on the Fossil Sport). I can’t use Samsung Pay on my Watch Active as my bank (Halifax) doesn’t support it, I can only use Google Pay as supported by the Fossil. Yet, despite all this, I much prefer the Galaxy Watch Active. The battery lasts longer, the interface (Tizen OS) is smoother with less lag than the Fossil using Wear OS even on the latest processor and I love the automatic fitness tracking.
Sorry Fossil! I really think you watch is being let down by buggy software and until Google improve Wear OS, I’m sticking with Samsung.
Some pictures of the two watches side by side. Hope that helps someone.
This is a very nice smart watch and seems very well made. The strap material is so nice and soft, the watch itself looks clean and simple. The watch dial is really nice to have and works well.
But, it looks lost on a big wrist. The screen is too small. (Unless I had been sent a smaller version?) Not sure Why Fossil have not filled the full available space to the outer rim bezel. It makes it seem very small indeed. And when a screen does not fill the space its obvious when its not perfectly in the middle.
I think if the watch was a bit bigger with a bigger screen it could then suit someone with large wrists. Seems to suit a more slender wrist in my opinion.
Not really played with many features of this Wear OS watch