Fossil comments on Gen 5 and Gen 5E software support; Gen 6 to arrive as a premium smartwatch with Google's new Wear OS platform
Over the weekend, CNET published an exclusive interview with Greg McKelvey and Steve Prokup, Fossil's Chief Commercial Officer and Senior Vice President of Connected Devices, respectively. While the interview mainly concentrated on a Fossil Gen 6 smartwatch, it contained a tidbit about the Gen 5 and Gen 5E, Fossil's most recent Wear OS smartwatches. According to CNET:
Existing Fossil Google Wear watches won't be upgradable to the new Wear OS software platform.
However, Fossil has now contradicted this somewhat with another statement, quoted by Droid Life:
At Fossil, our product and engineering teams continue to innovate on the Gen 5 and Gen 5E smartwatches, which will result in new software features being launched later this year and into next year. With regards to the operating system, we will be leveraging the unified platform announced at I/O, and our policy is to bring the maximum amount of innovation that Google will enable to each of our generation of smartwatches. Future upgrade plans are still being developed, and we will continue to make announcements later this year.
For more details on our upcoming smartwatch platform this fall, we will be able to share more with you soon.
In our opinion, the latter statement reads as if Fossil is unsure if it can bring Google's new Wear OS platform to its older smartwatches. Nonetheless, it is not necessarily true that existing Fossil smartwatches will not be upgradable, yet.
As for the Gen 6, Fossil states that it will only arrive as one model. Diesel and Skagen may have other options planned, but the Gen 6 will be a premium option, mirroring Fitbit's announcement last month.
The Gen 6 will support LTE and will supposedly have longer battery life, more advanced health features and faster performance than current Fossil smartwatches. Unfortunately, it is unclear when Fossil will release the Gen 6, nor when Diesel or Skagen will come through with cheaper options.
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