Fossil today launched the Fossil Gen 6 Wellness Edition, its first Wear OS 3 watch. It’s a minor update on something we’ve already seen before, with the major non-aesthetic updates here being driven by the Fossil Wellness app.
The Fossil Gen 6 is reasonably powerful. It’s got a Snapdragon 4100+, 1 GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage, and a 1,3-inch AMOLED display — all wrapped in a 44mm chassis. The connectivity specs are here, with Bluetooth 5.0 and all the usual suspects. There’s 3ATM water resistance and sensors for your heart rate and blood oxygen saturation. These all play with the Wellness App and allow you to keep track of your vitals while exercising, sleeping, and passively. Fast charging is also included here, and it’ll take your battery to 80% capacity in 30 minutes as with other Fossil watches.
It’s powered by Wear OS 3, though Android Central reports it won’t come with Google Assistant support. Rather, users will have to make do with Alexa on their wrists.
The Fossil Gen 6 Wellness Edition is a sleek-looking watch that looks very much like a watch. The crowns on the side help drive that point in, as well as its watch faces. It’s no Pixel Watch with its predominantly digital interface, but it’s not aiming to be. Fossil has carved out a brand identity all its own, it doesn’t need to be something different.
If you’re thinking the Fossil Gen 6 may sound familiar, that’s because it should. The company launched a Gen 6 smartwatch last year with an older version of Wear OS (and another variant this year). A lot of what is here returns, so you’re really only buying this for an updated design and better fitness tracking. If you want to save money and go for older, that smartwatch and other Fossil watches will see updates to Wear OS 3 later this month. For those interested in the new and novel, Fossil’s Gen 6 Wellness Edition will go on sale October 17 for $300 direct from Fossil.
The OnePlus Buds Clip are a new pair of open-ear earbuds built around a simple convenience. They join Sony’s LinkBuds Clip in the growing ear-cuff category, but either OnePlus bud can go on either ear.
Sensors recognize how the earbuds are being worn and route the audio channels accordingly. There’s no label to check before putting them on, and the feature also works when only one bud is used.
We buy fitness bands and activity trackers to keep tabs on our exercise, but it is easy to forget to start tracking or switch modes when moving between different activities. For Fitbit and Pixel Watch users, that could soon become a lot less annoying, as Google is rolling out a major upgrade to automatic activity tracking that can recognize more than 100 types of exercise, up from just 10 before.
Google first showed off the improved tracking earlier this month alongside the Fitbit Edge. It is now coming to Fitbit Air and the Pixel Watch 3, 4, and 5, and Google claims the added context behind the system makes workout detection nearly twice as accurate while cutting missed activities by more than half. Fitbit Edge will support it too.