The best Fossil smartwatches you can buy

Fossil has always made great watches, but the company only started the smartwatch game a few years ago. Initially, Fossil started with hybrid smartwatches and eventually switched to full-fledged smartwatches with Google’s Wear OS platform. In fact, Fossil is one of the few brands to keep Wear OS afloat in early 2020. That’s why we round up the best Fossil smartwatches you can buy.

The Fossil Group, the parent company of the Fossil brand, owns popular accessory brands such as Skagen and Misfit and licenses products from brands such as Puma, Emporio Armani, Diesel, Kate Spade and Michael Kors. Many smartwatches from these brands have the same specifications and receive updates at the same time. We will therefore include these companies on our list.

The best Fossil smartwatches

Note: We’ll update this list of the best Fossil smartwatches as new devices are announced. This post was last updated on July 29, 2020, without any significant changes from the previous month.

Fossil Gen 5: The Best Fossil Smartwatch

If you’ve read my letter before, please tell me: the Fossil Gen 5 is the best Fossil smartwatch you can buy. Period. It’s also our pick for the best Wear OS watch overall.

A sleek design, great performance, a beautiful display, and numerous color options are all factors that top the Fossil Gen 5 on our list. The device also has a long-lasting battery thanks to Fossil’s custom battery modes, which have since made their way to all Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100-powered smartwatches in the Fossil Group’s range of products.

Check Amazon for price cuts. The watch is typically priced at $ 295, but it could be found for less than $ 200 during the holiday season last year.

Skagen Falster 3

The Skagen Falster 3 fixes all of the performance and battery issues that plagued the first two Falster smartwatches. It has essentially the same specs as the Fossil Gen 5 (above) plus its awesome custom battery modes that really help it get as much battery out of it as possible. There’s also a built-in speaker so you can talk to you Google Assistant and answer calls via Bluetooth right on the watch.

Whether you should buy the Fossil Gen 5 or the Skagen Falster 3 depends entirely on which design you like better. The specs, performance, and pretty much everything else are the same between the two devices. However, the Skagen Falster 3 is newer, so the price hasn’t dropped yet. You may have to pay a little more for this at some retailers.

Fossil Hybrid HR

The Fossil Hybrid HR is the least intelligent device on our list. Technically speaking, it is a hybrid smartwatch, so there is no app compatibility with third-party providers, no integrated music support or NFC for contactless payments. It does Have an e-ink display just like your old Pebble smartwatch. This enables a lifespan of more than two weeks on a single charge. It looks great outdoors too.

I wouldn’t recommend buying the Hybrid HR because of its fitness features – I found the heart rate sensor to be irregular and there are no GPS options here (on board or attached GPS). Sleep tracking isn’t great either.

However, I think the Fossil Hybrid HR is one of the best looking smartwatches you can buy. This e-ink screen is really wonderful to use.

Also read: The best fitness trackers you can buy

Fossil Gen 5e

If you’re looking for the Fossil Gen 5 but want something smaller, the Fossil Gen 5E is the place for you. The Gen 5E smartwatches come in sizes 42 and 44 mm and offer many of the same Gen 5 features for just $ 250.

The Fossil Gen 5E has the same processor, RAM size, custom battery modes, built-in speaker, and NFC for Google Pay as the Gen 5. However, the Gen 5E has a slightly smaller display with 4GB of storage instead of 8GB and you get only connected GPS instead of integrated GPS. It also has a physical pusher on the side, but it doesn’t rotate to allow you to scroll through Wear OS.

While the Gen 5E sounds like a decent smartwatch overall, we recommend buying the standard Gen 5 if you can find it on sale.

Also read: Here’s what we’d like to see from the Gen 6 fossil

Michael Kors Lexington 2 and Bradshaw 2

Michael Kors fans will love the new Lexington 2 and Bradshaw 2 smartwatches. Announced at IFA 2019, these two classic smartwatches bring Fossils Generation 5 upgrades to the Michael Kors brand. That said, both watches feature the Qualcomm Snapdragon 3100 SoC, 1GB of RAM, a built-in speaker, and custom battery modes like the Fossil Gen 5.

The Lexington 2 is more expensive than the Bradshaw 2, but functionality should be the same on both devices.

Emporio Armani Smartwatch 3

The Emporio Armani Smartwatch 3 is expensive, but damn it is a beautiful watch. It shares the same specs as the other fifth generation watches from Fossil and has a speaker for answering calls and hearing responses from the Google Assistant. It has a sportier, lighter design compared to the other options on our list. There are tons of different colors too.

Diesel Fadelite

The new Diesel Fadelite is one of my favorite smartwatches of all time. It doesn’t even look like a smartwatch! There are four color options, but the clear one (above) is my favorite by far. There are also sheer blue, black, and red colors if you don’t love the all-clear look.

The Diesel Fadelite has the latest Snapdragon 3100 processor, but only has 512 GB of RAM, while other competing Wear OS watches have 1 GB of RAM. We found that the best Wear OS performers have the 3100 SoC and 1 GB of RAM, so performance can be an issue. However, we haven’t tested the Fadelite yet, so we can’t vouch for its performance or battery life.

That’s it for our list of the best Fossil smartwatches. Did we miss something? Do you have one of these devices? Let us know in the comments.