Don’t Buy the Fossil Gen 6 Smartwatch, Even at $80

Fossil’s latest fire sale, which seems to have sold out since 9to5Google reported on it, is yet another rendition of a deal that’s too good to be true. It feels like a good time to remind you that unless you’re purchasing an old smartwatch for archival purposes, a deal like the $80 Fossil Gen 6 smartwatch is not worth it, even for the laughs.

The company has been attempting to rid its stock of this smartwatch for a while. It started several months ago after Fossil announced in January 2024 that it was shuttering its wearable software division, nine years after it had been one of the first fashion brands to announce a collaboration with Android’s wearable operating system. The company promised updates to its devices despite the closure.

The Fossil Gen 6 smartwatch is an old watch. It initially launched back in 2021 for $300 to mediocre reviews. It was marred by its slow software, poor battery life, and a lack of exciting health features that would have helped Android’s wearable platform stand out from the competition. Fossil also had poor timing: it released the Gen 6 after Google’s announcement that it was overhauling the watch operating system and giving it a glam up.

There’s long been a joke about how Fossil smartwatches usually have better sales numbers when discounted. But you’ll also see plenty of Reddit threads where people say that this Fossil Gen 6, in particular, is a “dead product” and not worth the attractive pricing.

If you want to don a smartwatch that’s good for notifications and shuffling through music, there are cheaper options, especially if you don’t mind used hardware. I’ve seen the first-generation Pixel Watch from anywhere between $60 to $140 used on eBay, and it’s a much better representation of what Wear OS can do.

If you want to collect a piece of Android history, you can do better than this Fossil Gen 6 smartwatch. I’d start by finding an LG Watch, a relic from when Android thought it would be a square smartwatch platform or a circular one.