My first month with the Fossil Gen 5 smartwatch ⌚

About a month ago I decided it was time to buy my first smartwatch. After I did some digging on the internet, I decided I was going for the latest Fossil smartwatch: the Fossil Gen 5. In this article, I will share my experiences as a first-time smartwatch user with this device.

First of all, I’ll explain why I chose this particular model. This might sound a little odd, but one of the most important aspects for me was the design of the watch. I’ve always worn analog watches as an accessory, not for their functionality, so I figured my new smartwatch had to be stylish. The Fossil Gen 5 has a very minimal, but in my eyes beautiful design, so I really liked this watch right from the start. One thing that bothered me though was that the black stainless steel model was not available in my country. Luckily I found an almost similar strap on Amazon, so I bought the black silicon model and replaced its strap with the one I ordered off Amazon (which was incredibly easy to do by the way). I still use the silicon strap when I go running, so it’s a good solution to my wishes.

Then there was, of course, the functionality of the device. As I have never had a smartwatch before, I can’t compare it to any other ones out there on the market unfortunately. However, I did decide that I wanted a smartwatch with WearOS (formerly known as Android Wear), as I got the feeling that this OS was the best fit for my needs. I go running about once or twice a week and I wanted to track these exercises in Google Fit (emphasis on wanted, I’m now using Strava). As WearOS has Google Fit integrated out-of-the-box, I preferred a WearOS watch over a Samsung Tizen one. Another interesting point was that the number of available apps is much larger on WearOS, so that, together with the fact that I loved the design of the Fossil Gen 5, is where I decided to buy this particular model.

Well that’s that for explaining my choices, let’s get to the main point of this article: my experiences with this smartwatch.

1. Getting started (++)
   The first thing I did was, of course, connect my watch to my OnePlus phone. The Wear OS app made this very easy and this was done in a few minutes. All Google accounts on my phone were automatically synced to the watch and I could start using it right away. Nice!
2. Battery life (+/-)
   If you’ve read any reviews of the Gen 5 online yet, you’ll probably already know that the battery life isn’t the best. The first few days after I received the watch, it wouldn’t even last for one full day (8 AM — 11 PM). However, during these first few days I was obviously using the smartwatch a lot more than I was at the end of the month. As soon as I started using it in a ‘normal’ way (checking my notifications, creating appointments, tracking my sports activities, etc.) I noticed that the battery life isn’t actually that bad. Just as with my phone I can easily get through the day without having to charge it, so I only charge the watch overnight. There’ll most definitely be smartwatches that can last longer, but as long as the battery is good enough for one whole day, I’m satisfied.
3. Standalone GPS ( — )
   The same afternoon as I received the watch, I decided to go for a short run to test out its GPS features. However, Google Fit kept giving a strange error as soon as it was disconnected from my phone and the WiFi. I tried rebooting, but nothing worked, so I just went for a run without tracking it. The second time I went for a run I tried another app called Strava. As soon as I pressed the start button, the timer started counting and I thought everything was working properly. However, when I got home I noticed the GPS data for the first ~1km of my run was just missing. My first thought was that this had to do with just being disconnected from my phone (which I leave at home), and next time I went for a run I put my smartwatch in airplane mode (GPS will stay enabled) and waited for a few minutes. Still no luck unfortunately… While now there was about ~600 meters missing, it still wasn’t working properly. I thought this was some issue with Strava, so I opened a support ticket on their website.
   A few days later I wanted to go running again, but this time my smartwatch didn’t pick up any (!) GPS data on a 10km run through the countryside (where my phone does have a GPS signal), so I started doing some research on my own (which you can find in this Reddit thread). After a lot of reading online and testing, I found out some apps (Strava included) will always try to use the phone’s GPS data, even when it’s disconnected. Another Reddit user created an app (Wear Logger) which forced the watch to use the built-in GPS sensor. If I now go for a run, I first have to get a GPS fix through this app before opening Strava (which takes about 2–3 minutes, sometimes longer, sometimes faster). As soon as it’s got a fix, everything is working 100% fine and my GPS data is being tracked fine. However, it’s an annoying workaround for something that should be working out of the box.
4. Screen Brightness (++)
   One of the issues I read online with some Fossil Smartwatches is that it can be hard to read the screen while exposed to direct sunlight. I don’t see this problem though. The screen is very bright and easy to read outside, even when there’s a lot of sun. While exercising I only have to turn my wrist and I can immediately read my screen, so I honestly don’t see where these online critiques are coming from.
5. Strap replacement (++)
   Maybe you just want to use the original wristband your watch shipped with, I still want to stress out how easy it is to change the strap. All original straps have 2 pins at both ends which you can push to the center to remove the strap from the watch. Fossil also has a very clear and short youtube tutorial available on their channel which shows how easy it really is.
6. Google Assistant (+)
   This is another cool feature that made me buy a WearOS watch. I use GA a lot on my phone, so having this on my watch is even easier. While you can already do a lot of things, not everything is fine-tuned yet, unfortunately. For example, when trying to send a message by saying ‘Send a text to Mike, Hello Mike!’, it’ll show a confirmation screen with the message details. However, it won’t show the contact’s name, only his or her phone number. As I obviously don’t know every contact’s number by heart and I’ve got multiple contacts with the same name, I can’t know for sure if the message will be delivered to the right Mike. There are also some other minor issues or missing features that are available with Google Assistant on your phone, but overall it’s working fine.
7. Customizable (++)
   Over the past month I’ve been trying out a lot of different settings, watch faces, and other customizable features, and I have to say that the watch is really, really customizable to your liking. You can easily change your watch face, the tiles when you swipe left, or even the tiny icons (the ones that show the battery life or your daily steps) on your watch face (for which a lot of apps offer support). Some customization features are a little bit hidden in the settings menu or somewhere else, but it’s still very easy to customize the watch to your likings.

Overall score: 8/10

I’ve used the watch for over a month now and it’s a really useful addition to my life. While Fossil and Google still got some issues to fix and (small) improvements to make, the Fossil Gen 5 is a great piece of technology, which is also very stylish at the same time. However, the GPS issue is very annoying, but both the WearOS and Fossil support teams have confirmed that they are aware of the issue and are working on a solution.