Fossil Sport smartwatch review: Jack of all trades, master of a few 

Fossil Sport is special in many ways. t only does it run Wear OS, which is Google's second shot at wearables, it is also one of first few smartwatches in world to pack Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon Wear 3100 chipset. That and fact that Google CEO Sundar Pichai wore – read, endorsed - it during his I/O 2019 keyte means, well, it ought to be special right? 

most important thing to te about Fossil Sport however is its price. At Rs 17,995, Fossil Sport is on affordable side of smartwatch spectrum, without any major compromises one would expect from a product of its class – for what it’s worth, Fossil Sport seems well stacked on paper. And let me tell you straight off that it also lives up to its reputation basis of its specs. It’s safe to say that Fossil Sport maybe your best bet if you’re looking to buy a high-quality Wear OS-based smartwatch without burning a hole in your pocket. Question is, will Fossil Sport be eugh to pull Wear OS out of rut? 

Design – function over form 

Considering that Sport is a sport-y smartwatch, I think it’s commendable how Fossil has designed this thing. Using a combination of aluminum and nylon, Fossil has built one of lightest smartwatches around and I can’t stress eugh how important that is for a fitness wearable – it's like it’s t even re when you’re out for a run, but rest assured, it’s doing its job. A job well done.  

While it’s certainly a big boon for fitness enthusiasts, fashion conscious buyers should look elsewhere. Sport isn’t pretty, even though Fossil has tried to jack up its youthfulness through a bevy of colour options – it's available in six colours and two case sizes (41, 43 mm), with an option to pair it with as many as 28 different straps (18, 22 mm). 

smartwatch has a dual-tone casing, with a distinct aluminum ring at top and a hard-plastic bottom. nylon below that’s going to be in contact with your body always helps absorb sweat, even though it can look a little cheap, especially if you intend on buying any or colour but black and probably blue - Sport is clearly function over form and that’s t a bad thing at all. 

On right side you’ll find a rotating crown for scrolling through menus and two mechanical buttons that you can customize to open any app – se are built solid and offer good tactile feedback. 

Display – always-on and ticking 

1.2-inch AMOLED touchscreen display of Fossil Sport is as good as any or AMOLED out re – with inky blacks and abundant brightness. re’s also a sunlight boost option that temporarily boosts brightness levels – when enabled – when you’re out and about in direct sunlight. My only gripe with it is thick bezel that surrounds it, making main display area much smaller than it is.  

main USP of Fossil Sport’s display however is its dedicated ambient mode that brings always-on functionality to Wear OS-based smartwatch. It’s a first for platform and even though Samsung’s Gear – w Galaxy – smartwatches have had this for years, it’s one of features that deserves a mention. Remember, Apple Watch still doesn’t have it. 

Being always-on means that Fossil Sport can show a moving second hand as well as live-updating complications – all in colour – at all times.  

That's t to say that it is perfect though. Sport has a tendency to switch to ambient mode rar quickly – possibly to save battery life. That can be frustrating especially when you’re on to something on smartwatch, and in next instance, it’s out. A manual toggle to tweak timing would have been nice. 

Features – everything you’ll ever need  

Fossil Sport has everything you’ll ever need which is impressive considering price.  

- Accelerometer, Altimeter, Ambient Light, Gyroscope, Heart Rate, Microphone, NFC, GPS, Bluetooth 4.2 LE 

- 5 ATM water resistance 

- 4GB stor for playlists 

- Custom watch faces  

Performance review 

It’s secret that Google’s Android Wear never really took off. You could say same thing about smartwatches in general, once upon a time, but Apple and Samsung have shown all smartwatches need t be dumb – thus bringing said product category out of a rut. So much so that smartwatches have been beginning to make sense, heck, y’ve been beginning to get exciting. Clearly, Google needed a plan B, and it needed one quickly. That’s where Wear OS comes in. 

Wear OS – first anunced at Google I/O last year – isn’t just Android Wear with a new name, it’s biggest update to Google’s wearable platform since its inception. It’s very likeable too, especially when you compare it to Android Wear.  

Google has simplified whole thing (under its material design scheme) so it’s easier to use with special emphasis on Google Assistant – much like how it is with any or Google product. This is achieved in two ways - 

- whole user interface is divided into four parts. Swiping up takes you to tifications, while swiping down takes you to quick settings shortcut menu. Swiping right brings Google Assistant feed, while swiping left takes you directly to Google Fit app. 

- tifications are w grouped under one scrollable menu and it is also possible to respond to certain apps directly from this menu. 

I really like direction in which Wear OS is going but a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Sadly, re are two weak links here – one's Snapdragon Wear 3100 chipset and or’s connected to a few questionable choices that Fossil has made while designing Sport. 

Qualcomm made a big hullabaloo over Snapdragon Wear 3100, especially its big emphasis on ensuring long-lasting battery life and while it does have its moments (that always-on ambient mode is all thanks to Snapdragon Wear 3100’s dedicated low-power coprocessor for instance) its core hardware is same as last-generation Snapdragon Wear 2100. Whatever under hood changes this new processor brings on paper, well, y don’t add up in real-world us – because performance is a big issue here. It’s inconsistent. 

Fossil Sport has a tendency to freeze – or stutter – more often than t and this is something that’s apparent across board – wher you’re using touchscreen or using rotating crown. You can say that that’s a software tuning thing, but, performance-wise I am yet to see a visible difference between Fossil Sport and a smartwatch with Snapdragon Wear 2100 like last year’s Fossil Q. This thing needs better hardware or probably more RAM ( Sport has 512MB RAM), I am t too sure. 

But something that I am sure about is how Fossil could have made whole experience a little bit better – for fitness enthusiasts. 

- Fossil Sport can track over forty activities, but it can’t track m automatically.   

- one thing that it can track automatically – and something that it is good at – is your heart rate. In thirty-minute intervals. But re’s a catch. re will be instances where it will mistakenly read a quick movement on your part as an elevated heart rate. But n, this is more a smartwatch shortcoming that most brands are marred with – smartwatches just need to get smarter. 

- As activity-rich as Google Fit is, thing can’t track swimming. And Fossil doesn’t give you a first-party option, so you’ll need to download one by yourself. 

Battery life – Achilles heel 

t only does Snapdragon Wear 3100 fail to shine from a performance point of view, it isn’t exactly a battery champ eir. Fossil claims more than a day’s worth of battery life, but actual figures aren’t anything to write home about. Sport is a one-day smartwatch only and only if you’re kind to it – which is disappointing since being a fitness-focused smartwatch, you expect to take it for a ride. Its in-built battery saving mode is said to add “an additional two days of telling time” but n you’ll be stripped off to just basics. Luckily, Fossil Sport supports fast charging. 

Should you buy Fossil Sport? 

Fossil Sport is one of best Wear OS-based smartwatches in market today – yes, even with its fair share of shortcomings. It’s Samsung Galaxy Watch or Apple Watch Series 4, but that’s alright. What really works for it is its entry-level pricing and fact that re are simply more number of Android users in India. Fossil Sport will perfectly complement those users. Even better if you’re someone looking to tap into whole smartwatch category for first time. That said, if you’re someone really serious about fitness tracking, you’ll be better off buying a Fitbit.  

Photos by Saurabh Singh