14 DAY TRIAL // Apple Watch is currently the name that dominates the wearable market, and statistics show that the sales of the device keep growing every single quarter.
On the other hand, companies like Fitbit and Garmin, which are focused essentially on health tracking and workout monitoring, are also investing more in smartwatches, trying to bundle all their advanced systems with a more traditional form factor.
One operating system that everybody still expects to become a full-time watchOS alternative is Wear OS, Google’s product whose adoption has until now remained incredibly low.
And it’s because Google itself doesn’t seem to be very committed to Wear OS in the first place, as the search giant itself is yet to launch a device to spearhead its smartwatch push despite several attempts to launch a Pixel watch.
So right now, Wear OS device manufacturers must do the whole thing on their own if they want new features that could compete against the Apple Watch, Fitbit, or Garmin models, and this is exactly what Fossil seems to be doing right now.
As one of the companies committed to Wear OS in the long term, Fossil has started working on new features that aren’t powered by the operating system, but by its very own software. And a new update that went live this month is living proof in this regard.
Available for Gen 5 Wear OS smartwatches launched by Fossil, the update includes plenty of new features that are supposed to help exercise better. As said, the competition in this regard is getting fiercer, so right now, the number one priority for all companies seems to be creating just the right balance of smartwatch capabilities and health and workout tracking.
Fossil tries to do the same, so the new update includes real-time fitness tracking with data like distance, steps, calories, and heart rate. All of these are available on the screen while you work out, but the big change this time is that Fossil wants to do the whole thing without draining the battery. So technically, in order to do this, the company is sending some monitoring tasks from the main processor to the co-processor, which in turn reduces the power consumption and therefore improves battery life.
And because the battery life is so important going forward, Fossil has found a new way to score extra in this department. The new update adds support for custom profiles, which allows users to select apps that would enter an extended mode, technically making it possible to improve the battery life by reducing the resources available for battery hogs.
Going back to health features, Fossil knows that keeping an eye on such information is becoming more vital these days, so the company has also included VO2 max tracking in this update. For those who want to know exactly how they sleep every night, sleep tracking is now available as well on devices where the update is installed.
Fossil is also including an overhauled phone app in the update, so theoretically, it’s now easier to make and pick up calls without the mobile device in your hand.
All in all, this is without a doubt a welcome update that Fossil watches really deserve, only that it would’ve been nice for the whole thing to be powered by Wear OS itself. Google has already announced a series of updates for Wear OS, and these are projected to go live in the fall, but right now, it’s pretty clear that it’ll take a while until Google’s platform becomes a fully featured alternative to Apple’s watchOS. Until the full package is offered, device makers just need to do the whole thing on their own.