The Fossil Gen 5 Smartwatch is without a doubt one of the best Wear OS watches available. It performs admirably, which bodes well for the rest of the Fossil Group’s brands. It also has the appearance of a more traditional timepiece. It works best as a basic smartwatch with good notification handling and music controls. You may have difficulty obtaining comprehensive health tracking and advanced features.

Great Display

The Fossil Gen 5’s display is its most eye-catching feature. It has a 1.28″ AMOLED screen with a 416 x 416 resolution and a pixel density of 328ppi, making it crisp, clear, and bright enough to see in direct sunlight with automatic adjustment. By default, it is turned on all the time so you can see the time and notifications at a glance. However, the bright outside light made it difficult to see, and glare was an issue.

Customizable Watch Faces

The Fossil Gen 5 comes with a plethora of highly customizable watch faces, the majority of which look fantastic, and there are hundreds more available for download on the Play Store. These looks are complemented by Wear OS’s consistently simple method of switching between watch faces. To switch between different options, just press and hold on the watch face, as with other Wear OS watches.

Plenty of storage space

Aside from other features, the smartwatch has 1GB of RAM, which is nearly double what other Wear OS watches offer. Fossil also included a full 8GB of onboard storage, which is ideal for people who like to work out while leaving their phones at home.

Good Performance

The performance of the Fossil Gen 5 is good, if not quite on par with the Apple Watch Series 5, with no noticeable lag or dip in speed in normal use. The 1GB of RAM and the newer Snapdragon Wear 3100 processor help with this. Wear OS, on the other hand, is not a perfect experience. The setup process may fail, necessitating a reset and restart. The watch occasionally disconnects from the phone, and the only way to get it working again is to restart it.

Improved Battery Life

The Fossil Gen 5’s battery life has also been improved, lasting at least a day with the “Daily” mode activated, which activates all functions. The “Extended” battery mode, which disables some features such as the always-on screen, lasts more than two days between charges, while the “time-only” mode lasts even longer. While the watch has a two-year warranty, Fossil claims that the battery cannot be replaced, making the watch ultimately disposable.

Built-in Health Tracking

Google Fit is the primary app for tracking health in the Fossil Gen 5. It can count your steps, movement minutes, and heart points monitor your heart rate in the background, and guide you through your breathing. However, Wear OS isn’t as polished or feature-rich as rivals from Apple and Samsung.

Addition of speakers

The Fossil Gen 5 also has an in-built speaker. When you speak to your watch via Google Assistant, you can actually hear what it says back to you. You can also listen to music on the watch’s speaker.