The Fossil-size hole in Wear OS

When Fossil announced it was leaving the Android smartwatch space, I wasn’t surprised. The signs had been there for a while. What I didn’t expect was how sad it made me feel. Fossil’s smartwatches had never been the best. Their battery life was meh, health tracking could be iffy, and before Wear OS 3, the company was often let down by Google’s neglect. But now that Fossil has called it quits, it’s left a massive vacuum in the Wear OS ecosystem. Who, if anyone, can fill that void? Is there even a point when Google and Samsung dominate that space?

It’s been a few months, and I’m still not sure there’s a real answer.

Throughout Wear OS’s dark days — back when it was Android Wear, even — Fossil soldiered on. It continued to make platform-agnostic flagship smartwatches with an emphasis on style. That increasingly became a rarity. Before 2021, it wasn’t that odd for smartwatches other than the Apple Watch to work on both Android and iOS. Wear OS 2 watches, of which Fossil made many, only necessitated downloading the Wear OS app on iOS or Android.

But in 2021, Google and Samsung teamed up to create Wear OS 3. After that, Samsung gave up on luring over iPhone users. Google’s Pixel Watch was also Android only. That left Fossil as the main Wear OS watch that worked across both, but the Wear OS app was deprecated, which meant that Fossil had to develop its own companion app. (There was also the Montblanc Summit 3, but at $1,290, it’s not what I’d call accessible.)

It didn’t help that there was obvious favoritism from Google and Samsung toward their own products. Google Assistant would arrive on Google’s and Samsung’s watches but remain missing on many third-party Wear OS 3 devices. Fossil eventually got it on its watches, but it took so long, it turned to a partnership with Amazon Alexa to fill the gap in the meantime. Delays were par for the course, so it’s no surprise Fossil decided the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze.

I thought a lot about Fossil while reviewing the OnePlus Watch 2 — mainly because it was the first time in four months when I thought to myself, “Could OnePlus be the new Fossil?” On the surface, it feels like it could be. It’s a nice-lookin’ watch, particularly if you’re a fan of more classic timepieces. The battery life is superb, far outlasting Samsung’s Galaxy Watch series and the Pixel Watch lineup. There’s decent fitness tracking, too, along with dual-frequency GPS — things neither Samsung nor Google has implemented on its watches. At $300, it’s also competitively priced. Like Fossil, it’s missing LTE connectivity, EKGs, and safety features, but I’ve heard from plenty of folks who aren’t quite as interested in much beyond the basics.

It ticks most of the boxes Fossil did except two major ones: variety of style and platform interoperability. The latter, I understand. Wearables are increasingly the tool companies use to keep people happily within an ecosystem. For Android watchmakers, going after iPhone users doesn’t make sense, unless, like Montblanc, that’s what the majority of your existing clientele use. OnePlus, like Samsung, makes Android phones.

Meanwhile, Fossil had a veritable horde of smartwatches from various designer brands under its umbrella. Off the top of my head, there was Diesel, Armani, Michael Kors, Kate Spade, and Skagen. There were ladies watches with so much pavé, my eyes were blinded by bling. Skagen had that Scandinavian minimalist elegance. It experimented with E Ink hybrid watches.

OnePlus has exactly one style of watch in one size. (There are, however, two colors.)

The only other serious Wear OS contender here is Mobvoi — and that’s another concerning story. Mobvoi has had loyal fans for its TicWatch smartwatches for a long while now, but a lot of that goodwill eroded over the last two years. Its Snapdragon Wear 4100 watches were announced as eligible for Wear OS 3 in July 2021 but didn’t get the actual upgrade until December 2023. Making the switch meant losing Google Assistant. Meanwhile, its first Wear OS 3 watch, the TicWatch Pro 5, was heavily delayed and ended up launching two weeks after Wear OS 4 was announced. That watch also didn’t have Google Assistant (and still doesn’t). About a year later, Mobvoi has finally announced the Wear OS 4 beta program is open for applications.

All of this sounds awfully familiar to what Fossil slogged through. And like OnePlus, Mobvoi also doesn’t offer the same range of styles or platform interoperability Fossil did.

The question I’m left asking is whether it pays to try to be an alternative to the tech juggernauts. Fossil certainly didn’t think so. Mobvoi hasn’t given up, and OnePlus has entered its hat into the ring — but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both have similar limitations and constraints. It’s even less surprising, then, that truly platform-agnostic fitness trackers are now multisport watches like Garmins or much more pared-down devices like hybrid analogs from Withings — and that smart rings are starting to look like appealing alternatives to smartwatches entirely while budget trackers are starting to fall by the wayside.

I hope that OnePlus and Mobvoi stick it out. It’d be good for Wear OS if they did. But going forward, I don’t think we’ll see a wearable company like Fossil anytime soon. It takes a lot of patience to operate out of someone else’s sandbox — and that really is a shame.