It may seem like brands are jumping headlong into digital and even virtual experiences these days, but there’s still an appreciation for some things analog. As if to remind the world of that, Fossil introduced the latest versions of its hybrid smart watches on Monday.
Basically a smartwatch disguised as a traditional wristwatch, this class of wearable is defined by mechanical arms on outside and connectivity, sensors and other bits of high tech on the inside. The blend allows for some health and fitness monitoring and notifications on the wrist features typically only available on purely digital smartwatches and fitness bands but without looks that scream, the company began infusing some digital elements in its watch face with the Hybrid HR, which features an e-ink display under the physical arms. “E-ink” screens, also called “e-paper,” are probably best known as the display of choice for traditional Kindle e-readers and the now defunct, but still loved Pebble smartwatches. Although it’s a display technology, it’s meant to mimic paper, so it fits in with the analog sensibility.
Fossil hybrid smart watches display also anchors the sixth generation hybrids, sitting dead center of the 45mm Machine model and the 40.4mm Stella. With this inclusion and other features, Fossil appears to be closing at least some of the gap between its two wearable device categories. In terms of smartwatch functionality, all the usual suspects are there, such as step counting, sleep tracking, notifications, workout monitoring and Bluetooth 5.0. Machine and Stella also dip into more advanced features like heart rate, continuous blood oxygen and two-week battery life the latter of which will feel like eons compared to the 1 or 2 days eked out by touchscreen smartwatches. Thank the power efficient e-ink display for thatNot all of the features have wowed reviewers so far. Some find the reliability of heart rate and sleep tracking to be inconsistent, at least in the Hybrid HR. It remains to be seen if the industrial styled Machine and crystal-studded Stella can do any better.
They have something else going for them, though, which is unique for hybrids: the watch company told WWD that its latest touchscreen wearables would ship with Amazon’s talking tech as a pre-installed, but dormant app which was notable, because the company is a major smartwatch partner for Google’s Wear platform, which includes the Google Assistant. Two months later, the sixth-gen touchscreen watches welcomed Alexa, giving users a choice of voice assistant. Now that option has spread to the hybrid class. Owners of these gadgets can also personalize their homescreens with health and fitness data, as well as watch faces. That was an impossibility for purely physical dials, but e-ink screens can handle that capably. Fossil has a lot riding on product development these days. The company has gone from nearly doubling its earnings, closing October 2021 with net income of $31.4 million for the third quarter, to seeing declines in profitability that analysts find worrying.
Source: This news is originally published by wwd