Fossil Men’s Hybrid Smartwatch HR with Always-On Readout Display
A classic timepiece designed with integrated mechanical hands and an always-on read-out display showing curated information at a glance.
- Hybrid Smartwatch HR (Heart Rate) works with iPhone and Android Phones
- Enjoy 2+ weeks of battery life on a single charge
- Heart Rate, Activity & Sleep Tracking with in-depth wellness stats
- This is one smart watch – Receive and view smartphone notifications and alerts, see calendar and weather updates, control your music and more
- Case size: 44mm; Band size: 22mm; interchangeable with all Fossil 22mm bands; water resistant to 165ft (50m); imported
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Dr. StrangeBrew –
Update two days after my initial review… After further consideration, I am changing this review drastically. I want to love this watch so much, but this thing has really been getting on my nerves.I am still considering this the best hybrid available, btw. I’m so confused!I am annoyed enough at the software for this watch that I am knocking down to three until Fossil fixes them (then I’ll move up to four stars). I’m not sure this watch was really mature enough to be released. But it can get there.The software fixable (hopefully) problems:1. How the heck do you get the light to go on consistently? You can flick it, hit it hard with your (other) hand, whatever. I just can’t get it to go on consistently. UGH! I’m assuming that this isn’t an inherent hardware issue, and that Fossil can turn up the sensitivity to improve…2. How do I get tomorrow’s weather? I can get today’s, and a three day forecast two days out, but nowhere can I find tomorrow’s weather.3. Let me invert the text/background. It would be so much easier for me and my old eyes to see if it was just inverted. During notifications, put the whole thing like that. Let me choose. Shouldn’t be hard to do. If you have young eyes this might not be an issue. I’m having a really hard time reading notifications due to the white on black choice (that I cannot change).Not fixable hardware issue that will keep this watch from ever getting five stars from me:I’m not sure if they are using older technology for the e-ink or something. Contrast is not nearly as good as something like a Kindle Paperwhite. (Note: according to one of the answers for a question for this product, the crystal is tinted brown on the brown one. That would reduce contrast.)…and now, my previous review (with some edits because it went against what I typed above)… This has a better summary of my opinions on smartwatches, the features of this one, etc.———————————I have owned this watch for about two weeks now. I like this watch, and see it as, perhaps, the best smart watch I have ever owned for my preference for features.I am really into hybrid smartwatches. I want a watch with real hands. I want days or weeks between charging. I want a watch that looks like a normal watch. I want a watch that I can look at only briefly in order to find out what the message was, or who’s calling, or whatever. I do not want a watch that has apps built into it, or listens for “Hello Google,” has games on it, or whatever. If you’re into those things, look elsewhere. This does not run on Android/Google Wear, or Rizen, or Pebble’s OS, or anything like that.I used the Withings Steel HR for a long time. It almost fit the bill. The problem with it was that the display was too small. When there was a notification, I had to stare at it for a long time and watch it scroll across. Really rude when I was talking to someone. Loved the watch, but would give 4 stars due to that behavior. I was waiting for something that solved that issue.So, I got this watch after a long period of anticipation. The watch fits the bill. It gives good notifications that I can look at quickly. It has long battery life. It is a good looking watch, and not obviously a smartwatch. Let me break these down further for you:The good:1. Appearance: It looks like a watch. A nice watch. Not the sexiest thing I’ve ever owned, but a nice looking watch. It does not look like a smartwatch. It’s not incredibly large. The info on the display is subtle due to the dark background. Yay!2. Battery life: This watch meets the manufacturer spec’s. I think it might even be better than specified. I don’t get that many notifications, so my use might be light, but after a week, It was easily over 50%. Yay.3. Notifications: FINALLY! I can see (most of) what the notification is without hitting buttons or waiting for it to scroll. Yay.4. Features: The features on this thing are surpass what I need. I like the weather (see more under cons though). I like the fact that it can control music (not a feature I use). I like the fact that I can ring my phone when I’ve lost it in the couch. Yay!5. Very coolness : I love what they did with the hands… When you are doing anything with it, the hands point to the 3 and the 9 so you can see all parts of the screen that have info on them. Brilliant! Also, you can have it such that when you turn/flick your wrist, the hands circle around once. It looks cool, and it lets you see any one of the items on the screen. It has always bothered me that “real smartwatches”, if you set them up with virtual analog hands, will still cover the date. Just let me see the date!!! This watch always lets you see it. AWESOME!Cons:1. Responsiveness: This watch is e-ink. E-ink is not quick. Be patient, and understand that e-ink is not yet a responsive technology.2. Light: I can’t figure out how to get the light to come on consistently. Still working on that. If I figure out the trick, I’ll update this review. Hitting the watch harder isn’t it. Flicking it with my finger is inconsistent. Tapping it on the top left a strange amount (people will go “What did you just do???”) seems to do it pretty consistently.3: User interface: It’s kinda weird. When a notification comes up, you have to hit the middle button to see it more. Why the heck can’t you just use the upper and lower buttons to scroll it right away??? Dismissing the notifications is weird too. It seems as though the best method is to just hold the middle button for a little bit.4: Old person use: I’m currently roughly (the_current_year – 1973) years old. My eyes are not what they used to be. Sometimes it is a bit difficult to see what’s going on, especially with the light text over dark background, which leads to:5: Customization: Why can’t I switch it from white text on black background to black on white? It would be much easier to look at. It might not look as sexy, but I sure would find it easier to use.6: Weather: I can’t figure it out. It seems to show the extended forecast starting two days out. It’s Friday. I want to see weather for the weekend. It shows me the weather starting on Sunday? Where is Saturday? Perhaps I’m looking in the wrong place, but clearly they didn’t put it in the right place. (Note that weather is a functionality beyond what my requirements are, but it really is nice to have. As long as I don’t care what the next day’s weather is!)So, as you can see, I definitely have some complaints about it. These might be deal killers for you, but for me it’s the best available. Looks like a normal watch, gives decent notifications, has long battery life. That’s what I want. When a better hybrid comes out, I’ll switch to that, but I don’t see that coming anytime soon.
AmaAddict –
Let me start off by saying that I was really looking forward to this watch. As a Pebble owner, I was looking for something that offered me basic notification management and fitness tracking while giving me a long battery life. On paper, this watch looked perfect. But, unfortunately, I ended up returning it for three main reasons:1. The app is required and is guarded by a license agreement with a forced arbitration clause. So what? Well, it matters a great deal. The watch is useless without the app (you can’t even set the time), and forced arbitration clauses prevent you from being part of a class action lawsuit. If they ever withdraw the app or if the watches start catching fire or whatever, your only recourse will be to start arbitration with them in Dallas, TX. Unless you individually are willing to go through the time and effort to do so, you’ll never be able to recoup your losses. Fossil knows this, which is why they are hiding behind a forced arbitration clause.2. The app is buggy. A few hours after I installed the app, my phone let out it’s “dying” noise to let me know the battery was just about gone. This was odd since I had fully charged it at lunch and hadn’t used it much. When I picked it up, it was super hot and in the battery logs, it showed that the Fossil app had used 43% of my battery.3. The watch is buggy. In my first day with it, it lost Bluetooth connectivity three times and each time required reinstalling the app and factory resetting the watch to get it to re-sync. Even worse, there’s no indication from the watch that it’s lost signal. This means that you’re likely to miss important notifications because you’re unaware that your watch disconnected. At least on the Pebble, you can put an icon on the watch face to indicate if you’re connected or have it buzz if it loses connectivity.In summary, stay away. Maybe their next model will get the bugs out.
Nicholas Gaylord –
I really liked almost everything about this watch. The analog movement is beautiful, the feature set is minimalistic which I actually like, and all in all the materials and build quality really impressed me. In terms of the fitness-tracking, the heart rate monitor seemed mostly okay, though I would have liked to be able to adjust the frequency for the continuous heart rate monitoring. It was definitely a lot more accurate when it took my pulse more frequently in workout mode. And, as others have noted, I really do wish it would be possible to receive notifications from any app on my phone, instead of just a whitelisted set. The battery life is every bit as amazing as they claim.The problem though, which is leading me to return the watch, and which I have observed equally severely in two separate watches, is condensation. Any exposure to temperature change produces a very significant buildup of condensation on the inside of the watch crystal. I’ve never submerged my watch, and never exposed it to anything more than my sweat during exercise and a few drops of light rain. Moreover this has worsened over time as I have worn it, suggesting that the seals of the watch body are nowhere near adequate.
Jebbin Joseph –
Great product. Absolutely love it. Go for it if you’re looking for an analog watch but is smart enough for your daily life.
Akshay –
Good elegant Look…
Vamsi Potnuru –
It’s been 15 days since I have been using this watch. As performance wise it’s brilliant. Heart rate sensor and steps count is pretty accurate. Notifications are also good. Battery life is very good when compared to regular smart watch. Battery lasts for 12 days. Now coming to cons Bluetooth range is very less. That means when you left your phone in bed room and you are sitting in living area you may not receive notifications. And another con is Repitative notifications. That means if you clear your notifications in watch and didn’t clear notifications in phone. Same notifications will appear again and again. Hope this can be corrected by fossil up coming updates. Nice thing about this watch is people will think this is analog watch.
Abbey –
What help is a watch you cant wear? The manufacturer doesn’t have an app on play store and without the app it’s useless.Not user what else to do? Very bad experience with such a big brand
Margil Thakkar –
I have ordered this watch from Amazon and received one defective watch where hour and minute hands were not calibrated. To clear the handle the operations I have to click the buttons twice and in single double-tap, the light was not glowing. Battery performance is also not good, 20% each day.
Akshansh Choudhary –
Excellent watch. Does what it says. Amazing part is noboday from the first looks expect it to be a smartwatch. You will live their reaction.
L. KARTHIKEYAN –
Sometimes the syncing with app disconnects automatically and this needs to be rectified
Prem Singh –
Battery life is quite awesome, I get around 10-12 days of battery life. Feature wise it’s quite limited but people know what they are enrolling for. So for me it quite good. Just one thing to notice it’s not a fitness tracker it’s hybrid watch. So think and then purchase.
vikram bhalla –
No doubt that the watch is good but lock system is very very bad . anybody can easily lost his watch due to worst lock system.soo 00 marks for lock .don’t buy it for others .
JC, –
This is what I’ve been wanting on a watch. Good battery life, get the basic notifications, monitor my steps and heart rate, and it actually looks and feels like a good watch! Getting the screen to lit up and updating for notifications can be tricky at times but I think some software upgrades could help. I have no regrets about this watch.See more
Shaun, –
The Collider HR watch is very nice itself, but the software is absolutely terrible. A few issues: – Color: Watch is much darker than the photos. Its more black than light brown. Still looks nice, but NOT the color you see in the photos. – App Notification: the app only supports notifications for 13 apps. I have several others there are required – Wyze Cam, Hangouts Chat (separate app from Hangouts) Skype, etc. I don’t understand this limited availability. I saw in an announcement that they are releasing support for more apps (including Google Inbox [which doesn’t exist anymore]). However they will never keep up with the thounds of new apps being introduced everyday that people use. – While the watch has several useful functions (Stopwatch, View Past Notifications, Wellness Dashboard, Workout Mode, Music Control, Timer, Weather), the only way to access them on the watch is to link them to one of the 3 buttons. Lets say you don’t have the Stopwatch linked to one of the 3 buttons – want to access it? You can’t. You can set up multiple ‘profiles’ with different functions linked, but you have to go into your phone, into the Fossil App, and change it. – Do Not Disturb schedule doesn’t link with phone. The app will notify me even if the phone is in DND mode (for example overnight). The watch either needs to copy the DND from the phone, or be able to set a schedule for DND. – Turn of HR sensor. I don’t care about continuous HR monitoring. I’d like the ability to turn off the HR monitoring, which you can’t do. – Phantom notifications. I get all kinds of notifications for apps that only come through on the watch and not the phone. For example, The watch buzzes with notification when it’s clearing, and ‘no new message’ with Snapchat. – Alarms & timers syncing from the phone – if you set a timer on your phone, the watch does not notify you if it goes off. You have to go into the Fossil App and set a timer in there to get your watch to buzz. – Random disconnectSee more
Ben, –
This is what I’ve been wanting on a watch. Good battery life, get the basic notifications, monitor my steps and heart rate, and it actually looks and feels like a good watch! Getting the screen to lit up and updating for notifications can be tricky at times but I think some software upgrades could help. I have no regrets about this watch.See moreThe Collider HR watch is very nice itself, but the software is absolutely terrible. A few issues: – Color: Watch is much darker than the photos. Its more black than light brown. Still looks nice, but NOT the color you see in the photos. – App Notification: the app only supports notifications for 13 apps. I have several others there are required – Wyze Cam, Hangouts Chat (separate app from Hangouts) Skype, etc. I don’t understand this limited availability. I saw in an announcement that they are releasing support for more apps (including Google Inbox [which doesn’t exist anymore]). However they will never keep up with the thounds of new apps being introduced everyday that people use. – While the watch has several useful functions (Stopwatch, View Past Notifications, Wellness Dashboard, Workout Mode, Music Control, Timer, Weather), the only way to access them on the watch is to link them to one of the 3 buttons. Lets say you don’t have the Stopwatch linked to one of the 3 buttons – want to access it? You can’t. You can set up multiple ‘profiles’ with different functions linked, but you have to go into your phone, into the Fossil App, and change it. – Do Not Disturb schedule doesn’t link with phone. The app will notify me even if the phone is in DND mode (for example overnight). The watch either needs to copy the DND from the phone, or be able to set a schedule for DND. – Turn of HR sensor. I don’t care about continuous HR monitoring. I’d like the ability to turn off the HR monitoring, which you can’t do. – Phantom notifications. I get all kinds of notifications for apps that only come through on the watch and not the phone. For example, The watch buzzes with notification when it’s clearing, and ‘no new message’ with Snapchat. – Alarms & timers syncing from the phone – if you set a timer on your phone, the watch does not notify you if it goes off. You have to go into the Fossil App and set a timer in there to get your watch to buzz. – Random disconnectSee more