Smartwatches have now become an integral part of our connected world that not only allows us to check the notifications but also in helping track our fitness routine or control other smart devices at home. In the Sea of Smartwatches, Fossil Sport is the latest offering from the now Google-owned company which aims to provide the best WearOs experience along with the sporty look. This watch has been getting quite the attention in the market and we review it to see if it is the best out there for Android users.
The Fossil Sport smartwatch has a 1.2-inch round dial resembling a conventional watch with a body made of aluminum. It consists of an AMOLED display with 390 pixels per inch producing vivid and rich colors. The watch measures 0.88 ounces and 0.47 inches thick which makes it very light and comfortable to wear.
Key Specs of Fossil Sport:
- Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100
- 512MB RAM/4GB storage
- 5-ATM water-resistance
- GPS/Altimeter/HRM
There are three controls to the right which consists of a rotating crown and two programmable buttons. The rotating crown is similar to the one on Apple watch which makes it easier to navigate and scroll through the applications or notifications. The other two buttons can be programmed to launch any apps like Spotify or Google Fit etc. The position of the controls is a little weird because you end up activating Google Assistant quite a number of times when working because the rotating crown gets pressed by the accident.
Fossil Sport is one of the first watches to be powered by Qualcomm’s Wear 3100 processor which is designed specifically to improve not only performance but also the battery issues that has been seen across most of the WearOs devices. The performance, in general, is smooth and lag-free which is comparable to other WearOS devices running on Wear 2100 platform. However, the battery life on Fossil Sport which has a 350mAh battery has improved greatly compared to the devices running on Wear 2100 platform. The battery easily lasts more than a day with Bluetooth always on and notifications flowing. It takes a little over 1 hour to charge 100% which is fast when compared to Wear 2100 devices.
When it comes to tracking, Fossil Sport does a good job in both fitness tracking and heart rate monitoring. The results of heart rate monitor were compared with a couple of other smartwatches and the results were off by only a very small margin. With respect to fitness, the smartwatch is capable of tracking over 40 activities and is pretty accurate in calculating the distance/steps covered which are sometimes off by only 2-4% to the actual values. Enabling the GPS improves accuracy and also lets you have a visual map of your runs. The use of silicone also means it is able to deal with sweat and moisture. That’s particularly handy given that the Fossil Sport is water-resistant to about 50 meters making it usable even in shower or pool.
Fossil Sport comes with some pre-installed watch faces to choose from, most of which are customizable with step count, weather, etc. WearOS basically features only four swipes from each direction of the dial to bring up notifications, toggles, upcoming events, and Google Fit respectively. The rotating crown can also be pressed to bring up the list of applications installed on the watch. It is also powered by the Google Assistant which provides useful information on planned trips, reservations, calendar events, etc which makes it easy for us to check everything right on our wrist instead of going through the smartphone. There is 4GB of internal memory which can be used to store songs and then pair the Fossil Sport with Bluetooth earphones/headphones to enjoy music without the need to carry a smartphone.
Fossil Sport is available in various colors and priced at Rs 17,995 making it an affordable option when compared to Samsung Galaxy Watch, Huawei Watch or even the Apple Watch. There are few smartwatches from other brands like Amazfit and Mobvoi TicWatch costing lesser but as far as the WearOS experience goes, Fossil Sport is probably the best in its segment.
