Before reading the review, I just want to say that I would like to start more of a discussion about wear os, than just spread negativity about wear os and fossil watches.
The Fossil Gen 5 series comprehend both Carlyle and Garret models, and I’m reviewing the second one but they’re identical in any aspects if not aesthetically
External impression and build quality ⅖
Being a premium watch, I expected better material quality, as the upper side is ok, with metal and glass but the other one is made of cheap plastic, and having other premium smartwatches on the same price with metal or ceramic, plastic is a bad sign for me.
On the right sight it has 2 sturdy metal buttons and a ring nut, which felt good for the first 2 months and then started feeling loose sometimes
On the opposite side there’s the speaker, and it has good sound quality for a smartwatch, but it started distorting at any volume level after a light immersion in bath water and note that it SHOULD be 3 ATM waterproof certified, but it defenetely isn’t
And the main reason of the score is that literally the day after the warranty expired, the bottom came off.
The problem is that this is a very common problem along with the charging rings coming off too, and the gen 4 smartwatches had it too, so while Fossil claims every generation to have it fixed, probably even gen 6 will start having similar problems
Screen quality ⅗
The screen is definitely small and not very bright compared even to a first gen Ticwatch E, which was a cheap and compact smartwatch
There are huge bezels that especially in the Garret version don’t match with the rest of the aesthetic.
You can kind of go past these things by putting text size to big and activate the temporary brightness boost
There’s auto brightness but it’s very conservative
Sport and health monitoring 3.5/5
Heart rate and step monitoring are precice enaugh and with most of the sports I tried it worked well
I have to point out that watersports, even if technically supported even in the apps, are a no go because of the bad water resistance, and having both fossil’s health apps and google’s ones it’s kinda weird because either of the two you choose, you’ll still have the others hanging around and occupying space without being useful at all
The gps takes too long to get singal, so you will probably end up using the one on your smartphone
Software and power 3.5/5
Software updates have been very few and not very significant, leaving it almost as it came and without ever getting a major update to wear os 3, or even security patches, locked at almost 2 years ago
Again, it should be their flagship model
I’m not going to talk deeply of wear os, as it’s been the same for years with the same problems, but always lot’s of versatility and ways to customize your watch
The snapdragon 3100 is enaugh to let everything run smooth on wear os, but is a revised version of a 2014 smartphone chip, so… in the next category
Batterylife ⅖
An old power hungry chip + wear os + a thin and small battery = less than a day of normal usage
Unless you compromise on Always on display, brightness, sport monitoring, connections, vocal assistant… Leaving you with a watch that tells you time, weather, incoming messages and reminds you your duties if you want it to last until dinner at least
Conclusion 2.5/5
Many reviewers praised this smartwatch, when it came out, but after a long time using it and taking with other fossil smartwatch users, I would go as far as suggest you to consider more other brands, because the same mistakes and pooer build quality persevered in 3 generations of watches, and software support is poor.
This watch seriously made me consider not to buy another wear os watch, but new ones from Samsung, Google, Oppo and Ticwatch seem promising, while Huawei with amrony OS has some interesting alternatives.
