As promised in my unboxing, here is my full review of Fossil's first smartwatch. If you have any questions, leave them below and I will answer all of them. Enjoy! Music used: Beat the Competition - RU-vid Music Library
I've had mine for a week now and I LOVE it. I upgraded from a pebble time steel and the difference is so much superior. great review! I also highly recommend it for anybody interested in this watch
I've been debating whether or not to get this watch, and your review convinced me... going shopping tomorrow. I love Fossil watches, I own about six, and this will be my first SmartWatch. Thank you for a great review!
Huawei watch can read your pulse(two sensors, not just one), and can make calls directly to the person (you can talk to the watch with your phone in your pocket and the person will hear you, basically). And can download thousands of faces using apps. Google maps also is on it like many android watches. Yep I LOVE IT!
+Simon Sturgess glad you enjoy the Huawei watch. It is definitely a good one. The great thing about Android Wear is that you get a choice in watches =)
Alix Moya Exactly. I just wanted to know what other people thought about it. And to see if I could learn more. And this video did a great job of explaining.
oh OK yes it did connect to android wear. I was thinking you could maybe download more apps or control what syncs from your phone but if it's basically the same then that's OK
Finally a good review of this watch! Well done. The flat tyre is a bit of a down side but I can't imagine impacting your use of the watch too much? Overall it look great.
Thanks a lot! Of course I would prefer a full circular watch, but after about an hour of wearing it you forget it's there. One positive of the flat tire actually that a lot of people don't mention is that they actually make notification cards look more natural. It's a bit hard to explain but essentially it creates parallel horizontal lines while with a full circle it kind of looks like it comes from nowhere. If you look at it you can kind of see what I mean. But in regard to how watch faces look, I definitely agree that a full circle will look much better.
This was really a good review. The quality of the commentary and the insight you brought in definitely helps anyone decide to buy or not; which is the point of these reviews in the first place. I'm sure you know Michael fisher from pocketnow; your review was as engaging! Good job, I hope you grow your subscribers base.
I want to thank you for the quick response and good review. Many smartwatches as you know do not have VERY good fitting straps. And because they often fit loose, it makes it difficult to feel the vibration. This strap should be great for rectifying that. And I should have asked you in the first question: In your opinion, is the vibration strong?
The vibration is definitely noticeable but it's not strong enough to rattle, which I think is a good thing. Again, any standard 22mm fits so if you're not happy with the stock band you have a lot of choices.
is the strap also adjustable at the clasp? All metal straps have removable links, but many are also further adjustable for a customized fit at the clasp. Is this the case with this watch and its strap as well?
great review! Question: Amoled screens are great for night time because the blacks are true lyft black. does this LCD screen get distracting in the dark?
Thanks! That's a good question. You can't really see the backlight of the blacks unless you're in near pitch dark conditions. Although I have noticed that the dim always on mode tends to be on the brighter side. Because of this, you can actually turn off tilt to wake because in most circumstances you can still see the screen even when it's in dim mode. However, downside is if you're somewhere like a movie theater you might want to turn off the screen as it gets a bit bright in a very dark place. Hope that helps!
Is the battery life any better with later software updates and after running-in for a few weeks? I've read some reviews that say it's terrible compared to the 360 mk 2 but you didn't seem too upset with it.
+Don Sambandaraksa I haven't noticed any differences in battery in the 7 months of using it. I use always on mode and tilt to wake off so the screen is always in ambient unless I interact with it. If I take it off the charger at 7 am, by 10 pm it has around 45% left if I wear it all day. On days that I don't wear it all day I sometimes go two days before charging.
+Alix Moya I don't use an iPhone so an Apple Watch would not work for me. If you own an iPhone, you might be better off with an Apple Watch because it will work better with an iPhone than the Fossil. However, what I think the Fossil does better is that you can make the screen be always on. The Apple Watch cannot do that.
Nice review.. missing an textual overview of the different sensors compared to others. There are some small differences. Atleast i'm happy to see that this watch, which looks almost identical to the moto360, doesn't suffer from the low res ambient mode the 360 has. That was one of the deal breakers for getting the 360 gen2. I also like the wireless charging (like the 360) which is a bonus. Overall great looking watch in stainless steel from a well known "premium" watch brand. Any thoughts though about Fossil not being a big tech firm and possible lesser updates on firmware and apps ? In general the support afterwards compared to the big tech firms like Asus, Huawai, Samsung and such ?
Thanks for the comment. As far as updates go, unlike Android which is fragmented across different OEMs, Android Wear is essentially the same software across all the watches. So, I'm almost 100% sure that Google will be the one pushing the updates directly to the watch. In fact, this might even be a bigger case for the fossil because fossil is not a tech company so Google will probably end up taking care of things for them.
+DrumNTech Hi and thanks for the response. Only thing is that (to my knowledge) there is a difference in the Wear version you get on your phone and the one thats in the watch. My phone (Note4) has the latest wear version app but the watch is still shows wear version 1.3 Like with phones the manufacturer still has to make their own firmware with their blootware. Not sure though, you might be right. :)
I think you did a great review of the watch. However, I do feel you should have demonstrated the fitness part of the watch a tad bit better because these are some of the things people are expecting.
+Big Tyme hey thanks for the feedback. This specific watch isn't geared so much towards fitness. It even lacks a heart rate monitor. It has a pedometer and that's about it. No GPS either. Those interested in fitness should opt for a different watch.
Thanks for the immediate feedback. Since I am looking for a smart watch that has both Great Fitness paired with great smart apps this will not be the watch for me. If you have any suggestions through from your reviews please feel free to inform me. Keep up the good work
Hey i just got this watch as a gift but for some reason my temperature always says 0 degrees. do you know how i can fix this? i sent in a support ticket about an hour ago.
Very good video, but I`ve used one in a Fossil store and the screen looked pretty bad and the viewing angles were terrible, or could this just be low brightness?
+Bionicle16 Thanks! Not sure what to tell you. I actually use mine on the lowest brightness at all times because it's actually bright enough. I've been wearing it daily since I got over a year ago and have no issues. Maybe the one you looked at was defective. Not sure.
In regard to your question about custom fossil watch faces: Custom fossil watch faces are watch faces that were designed by fossil and includes in the list of watch faces you can choose. I went through a couple of them in the video. These are ones that other Android Wear watches don't come with. Yeah, the plan is to cover the software more in depth in a future video where I will cover "ok, Google" commands. As far as I can tell the watch doesn't have a standalone GPS but if connected to your phone it can use the phone's GPS to give you directions.
oh ok I understand so if a person calls me and I push answer to answer the call. But I can only talk on the phone and not the watch right? But this model is can listen to music on it.
+Aneesah Myers that's correct. If you can hear music playing from the watch then it has a speaker. Then you should be able to talk to someone on the phone through it.
Are there specific features that work only with Android or are all features compatible with Android and iOS? Is there anything you have noticed that provides a reason to choose one over the other when pairing with this watch?
There will definitely be more things you can do when paired with an Android device than an iPhone since Android Wear is first designed for Android. However, the core features such as notifications, music control and switching Watch faces will work. I believe you wouldn't be able to anything that requires installing an additional app..since all the apps for Android Wear are in the Google play store with the exception of the main Android Wear app which is in both the play store and app store. Basically, if you have an iPhone and like the way the watch looks and just want something that gives you notifications at a quick glance this will work for you. But it will definitely have a ton of more features when paired with an Android device.
I got the watch and its awesome. Question, as you know I chose this watch because it accepts the Strava app. After a 3 hr ride while strava is running and only during that time then afterwards just running regularly with no app the battery life is at 5%. The total time frame off the charger was from 8:30 am to 5pm. Not sure if the charge time should be longer, does the app cause the watch to use more energy?
Apps that are constantly running do use up a lot more energy. Especially if they keep the screen on at regular brightness the whole time, compared to keeping the screen at the ambient mode brightness.
+Linda Ruggiero this is the first gen watch. I'm not sure about the 2nd generation watch, but typically the speakers are just used to talk on the phone. It's possible that you can set it in the settings though.
Thanks for the wonderful review. On the Fossil website there are various variants in terms of price any idea whats the difference??? Does it support Gmaps?
Thanks! The Q Founder is the only one that is a full smartwatch. The Q Grant is a smartwatch/traditional watch hybrid. Basically it's just a regular watch with a fitness tracker, vibration motor, and a couple of led lights embedded in the watch face. The Q Founder does support gmaps.
great video! question: I travel internationally a lot. Is the watch easily adjustable? Does it just mirror the phone time? Is there a 2 timezone face option?
Thanks! The watch does mirror the phone's time. From doing a quick search on the play store I did find a few watch faces that allow you to use two timezones.
THANK YOU! Maybe I missed it, but does the watch offer Android Pay? (I don't know if that's what it's actually called. Ya know, the 'wave of your phone' feature?)
Unfortunately, Android Pay isn't implemented in Android Wear and if I recall correctly only the Sony Smartwatch 3 has NFC built in which is the tech that allows Android Pay. That's probably the only thing that I wish we had that the Apple Watch has. It's actually ironic that Android included NFC in phone's way before iPhones did, yet the Apple Watch has it while most Android Wear devices don't.
+navjot singh if someone is calling you on your phone, you can accept the call from your watch but you cannot use the watch to talk to someone. This is a review of the first generation watch, so the newer watches could be different.
Hi, just out of curiosity, can you elaborate on what do you mean by the Fossil watchfaces crashing? do you end up restarting the watch or do you only have to change the watchface? thanks
Unfortunately, I had to restart the watch by holding down the crown button. It was really strange. I use the minimal and elegant watch face from the play store and I haven't seen a crash when using this watch face in the nearly two weeks of owning the watch.
+Aneesah Myers if you're using the first generation of this watch (the one I reviewed in this video), it doesn't have a speaker. The Fossil Founder 2.0 should have a speaker.
Can you do more test screen watch direct to sunny as beam shine sunny please? Most most RU-vid demo watch but never wear it after brought. supposes buy watch or money back on return. Is better then RU-vid.
During the first two minutes of the video the sun is directly shining on the screen and you can clearly see it. I've been using this watch everyday for the last 3 months. I have had no problems with screen visibility. In fact, I keep my brightness always on the lowest setting.
Interesting. I remember reading something about that but I also read that it was apparently fixed. Is it connected to your Android Wear app? To be honest the Fossil Q app doesn't really do anything that the Android wear app doesn't do.
If I get any watch like this, i want to be able to control my music playlist from the watch. Can it do this? I want to wear my earbuds but control the music from my watch.
Yep. You can do that with Spotify and Google Play music. Possibly with others, but I know it works with this. If you use Google play music you can also store music offline directly to the watch and then connect BT headphones to it. This way you don't even need the phone.
Would you say that you recommend this one over the Moto 360? Or even the Galaxy Gear S2? I'm so torn on what device I should look into getting. This review is great btw
+Chris Lizio Thanks man! Gear S2 doesn't run android wear so it's not going to have many apps. It also has a different interface, and might not work as well with non Samsung phones. Moto 360 V2 and fossil are pretty similar, and it's really upto you which design you prefer and if you care about the heart rate sensor.
+Dee Davinci I have a few Fossil watches and I'm always happy with them, so if I go 3rd party that's the one I'm going with, just waiting on the Galaxy Gear S3 to be unveiled before making my decision
You have a moto 360 gen 1, comparing battery life at the end of the day for you. Are they comparable or which one has more battery life? Also, you mention the vibration is strong, in all of the Android watches I have worn, the vibration is so weak (Moto 360 gen 1 and 2, Huawei watch) that I don't notice notifications unless I install something like Feel the Wear. Is this one similar or stronger than those watches?
The battery on the fossil is immensely better than on the first gen moto 360. My moto 360 battery life did get a lot better in the last few months of using it from an update. I never used always on/ambient and typically I would end the day of about 15 hours at 30-40%. With the fossil I have always on screen activated with tilt to wake and yesterday I went from 7 am to midnight with 43% left. Typically after about 13 hours of usage I have about 50% remaining. Regarding notifications I never had a problem feeling them on my moto 360. I do think the fossil has a slightly more powerful motor though.
Thanks for that. Currently have a Moto 360 gen 2 and Huawei watch sitting at home that I think I am going to return both of. Maybe pick this up. No real info out on it yet, so the review was helpful. Had the larger Moto die on me 2x now, and I don't use it that much. The Huawei hasn't died, but gotten to 20% battery life, and I really like an Ambient sensor, flat tire doesn't matter. Also QI charging.. the Huawei is too fiddly. Wish the Fossil had moved the button up to the same spot as the new Motos.
Interesting. While it's difficult to convey usage patterns, what would you say yours are when the moto died and the Huawei got to 20%? Something else to keep in mind is the moto suffers from the weird 8 bit ambient mode. It seems to be the only watch that does it. Also, as I mentioned in the video, ironically I don't use the light sensor because I keep my brightness at 1 which is actually plenty bright for me. Full brightness is very bright.
Yeah I noticed on the moto, but it doesn't really bother me. I use a black background with white text with only 3 days of weather info from a watch face I made from watchmaker. Very simple. I installed wear mini launcher, so that may have been the battery drain culprit. But that frustrates me. That I have to pay a lot of attention to the wear apps I install.
You can accept or reject calls from the watch. There's no way to actually talk on the watch for phone calls. If you have a Bluetooth headset connected to your phone, you can use that.
Unfortunately, I don't have the budget to buy multiple smartwatches so I don't think I will be able to get my hands on the Huawei since the fossil is the watch that I use.
+Ali Umair nope. You don't need to touch it to see the time. You can either set the watch up so that it shows you the time when you tilt your wrist up to look at the watch, or just have the screen always on. I have my screen always on and I still have some battery left at the end of the day.
Yes, if you're able to install the Android wear app. But again, it will be a lot more limited on iOS so it depends on what you want to use it for. As far as the price, I mentioned it in the video. It's 295 USD for the metal band version and 275 for the leather band version. Of course you can switch out the band for any 22mm watch band.
+Leonard Sparks the original one that is reviewed in this video only has a mic with no speaker. However, fossil released a 2.0 version that I believe has a speaker as well.
I hve the one with the speaker. wear you can talk to Google on the watch but each time I speak it says I didn't catch tht so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. Also how to I text someone back on this watch?
+Aneesah Myers on both models you can talk to the watch. That only requires a microphone. All Android Wear watches have microphones so you can say "OK google". But only the newer model has a speaker where you can hear someone when talking on the phone. If you have the older model (the one I reviewed in this video) you can't talk to someone through the watch.
+Ravi Chotrani I believe the 2nd generation has a speaker, so you are able to. However, your phone still has to be connected via Bluetooth because it does not have cell data.
