Best Fossil smartwatch in 2024

Fossil has long offered Wear OS smartwatches in a wider range of designs than other brands, bringing standardized features to diverse styles. However, the brand’s most recent sixth-generation models were released way back in 2021, and are now lagging behind the best Wear OS watches.

Sadly, in January 2024 the company announced its exit from the smartwatch space, meaning there are no new Fossil watches on the way.

Existing models will receive support and updates for “the next few years,” so existing owners haven’t been left entirely in the cold — and if you decide to buy a new Fossil watch today, it should still get occasional software updates for a little while yet. Of course, with Google and Samsung devices also built on the Android platform, there are bound to be upgraded alternatives to these Fossil models headed to the marketplace in the coming months and years.

There is some good news. Fossil enthusiasts may find the company’s remaining smartwatches at a severely discounted price, and with that in mind we’re leaving our ranking of the best Fossil smartwatches intact: if you really want to buy one, and find it at a great price, here are the models we’d recommend. But for most people a Fossil is no longer the best buy, and you should look at more modern alternatives from companies that are sticking with smartwatches.

The best Fossil smartwatches around

The Gen 6 comes up a lot on this list, and that’s because Fossil and its selected partners are getting plenty of mileage out of the product line – and since it looks this good, it’s easy to understand why. The stainless steel design is sleek and looks much closer to a traditional timepiece thanks to its circular face.

The Gen 6 Wellness Edition marks the debut of Google’s Wear OS on the platform, and it runs well here with a Snapdragon Wear 4100+ chip that ensures minimal slowdown when moving through Google’s OS. The thing that gives it that ‘Wellness Edition’ moniker is constant heart rate monitoring (the prior, ‘non-wellness’ version makes the process much more focused on users triggering it).

It also runs with iOS devices, so the Gen 6 Wellness Edition is still worth a look if you’re skipping the Apple Watch.

Wear OS brings a host of apps to the platform, but you’ll naturally get less mileage from those if you pair the watch to your iPhone instead. Similarly, don’t expect a whole host of Apple and third-party iOS apps to work with the Fossil outside the usual suspects like Strava. Expect to charge it daily, though, something that the Hybrid Wellness Edition handles much better.

Read our full Fossil Gen 6 Wellness Edition review.

As we’ve already touched on, the Fossil lineup doesn’t always bear the manufacturer’s name — and the Michael Kors Gen 6 is one such model. Look past the glitz, though, and you’ll find it’s a Gen 6, just like many of the others on this list.

That’s not necessarily bad — the Michael Kors facelift brings out even more reasons to be cheerful about the design, with much shinier versions that start with stainless steel and offer smaller diamonds on the pricier end of the spectrum. That allows for additional customization options, but it’s a little uncomfortable for those who prefer sleeker, more plastic-based bands. The metal ones here have been known to be less comfortable, particularly for sleep tracking.

Whichever one you pick up, there’s a blood pressure and heart rate monitor and a blood oxygen tracker, but wearing a heavy Michael Kors-adorned smartwatch when trying to hit a new personal best or lift weights might not be practical. In any case, it still packs the Snapdragon 4100+ chip, too, with the performance benefits of faster app loading, but the battery life remains at one day.

Fossil’s Gen 6 (non-Wellness Edition) is, as is becoming a theme, much the same as the Wellness Edition itself. In fact, the only real difference is that its sensors offer continuous heart and blood oxygen tracking, and the faces with Wear OS 2 preinstalled. But you can instantly upgrade to Wear OS 3. Why does it warrant its place on this list, then?

The simple answer is that since the Gen 6 Wellness Edition has bumped this one off of Fossil’s product page, the $300 Gen 6 can now be found for consistently less than $200 – making it a great option for budget-conscious buyers.

If you’re looking for a smartwatch for heart tracking, it’s worth remembering you’ll need to trigger it manually (as well as some other sensors). That’s a bit of a nuisance and won’t work for anyone looking for a host of ways to gather data from things like sleep tracking.

A common theme of the Gen 6 has been its less-than-spectacular battery life, but the Gen 6 Wellness Edition changes the narrative with up to two hours of life from a single charge. To achieve that, it swaps the standard smartwatch screen for an e-ink one (think e-reader tablets). It’s backlit, too, making it easy to read in all lighting conditions or when out for a run at night.

It does mean things are a little blander than the colorful display you’ll find on the standard Gen 6 Wellness Edition, but the mechanical watch hands add a touch of class to proceedings. As with Fossil’s other Hybrid models, the main, circular face remains analog, with a series of smaller displays subtly poking through with information like calories burned, steps taken, or heart rate – and, since this is based on the Wellness Edition, your heart rate is being taken regularly without needing to activate it.

It remains ideal for some adventuring, too, with a 3ATM water resistance rating and a couple of physical buttons that make it easier to do things like summon your voice assistant when you’ve got sweaty hands, and the touchscreen isn’t going to work.

The Carlie Gen 6 Hybrid is a great-looking smartwatch that comes in various colors, although not with as many options as the more exhaustive Gen 6 Wellness Edition.

If you can get past that, though, they’re easily some of the best-looking Fossil smartwatches, offering options for silicone, leather, or steel mesh straps with all the good stuff mentioned in the Gen 6 Wellness Edition Hybrid listing above.

That means no color display but analog watch hands, two weeks of battery life, and the sleek e-ink panel that looks great and is arguably less distracting than its color siblings.

Picking the best Fossil smartwatch for you

Fossil is a unique spot among smartwatch manufacturers because it has drilled into what it sees as the fundamentals of its entire lineup and barely deviates from any of them.

That’s no bad thing, but your options are very limited if you’re not looking for a Gen 6. You can make some easy, hard-and-fast decisions, though. Do you have a small wrist? Go for the Carlie. Want to make a splash? The Michael Kors. Need a week or two of battery life? Opt for a Gen 6 Hybrid.

As noted above, the Gen 6 Wellness Edition should be your first port of call, though. It’s a great all-rounder, and while we’d have liked longer battery life from Fossil’s flagship device, it is at least packing Wear OS 3. If you can deal with some missing sensor features, then the base Gen 6 is well worth a look. It offers the same gorgeous design, and a quick firmware update will bring it up to Wear OS 3, too.

If you’ve got money to burn and don’t mind a heavier timepiece, the Michael Kors Gen 6 comes in various eye-catching designs for all wearers. It doesn’t offer any additional features above what’s already being offered, but it’s the kind of smartwatch you can happily wear with your evening wear. While there are plenty of other smartwatches around, we’d argue that the Gen 6, in all of its variants, is the one that looks consistently sleeker than its contemporaries.