9 tips to improve battery performance on Wear OS Fossil Gen 5 or 6 watch

The best Wear OS 2 watch available is the Fossil Gen 5 Smartwatch. Performance, aesthetics, and customizability are all areas where it excels. I just wish the watch’s battery didn’t have to be constantly cycling through sensors. The Fossil Gen 5 is fantastic if you’re a fan of Wear OS2. Although the hardware is excellent, once Wear OS 3 is released, don’t anticipate any updates.

Fossil Gen launches multiple smartwatches each year, and they’re some of the best-looking Wear OS watches in the business. Despite this, I didn’t expect to like the latest Fossil Gen watch as much as I did — many Wear OS 2 watches are slow and struggle to last a full day on a charge.

The Fossil Gen 5 Smartwatch is different. Its upgraded specs, custom battery mode, and new hardware make for one of the best Wear OS 2 experiences you can find right now. Read our complete Fossil Gen 5 Smartwatch review to find out why you should buy one and why you might want to pass.

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What we enjoy

• Clearly visible display
• Numerous fantastic watch faces pre-installed
• Helpful specialized battery mode
• NFC, GPS, and a heart-rate monitor
• Accurate tracking of fitness
• The built-in speaker is very practical

What we don’t like

• Battery is mediocre but better than average
• Unqualified for the Wear OS 3 update
• High cost for an outdated package

The Fossil Gen 6 watch is currently offered: The Gen 6 was recently released by Fossil. Although it has a few reliable sensors and a bright, colorful display, it still has a short battery life and only a few fitness app options. See our review right here.

Notes from the Fossil Gen 5 Smartwatch review: I’ve been using the Fossil Gen 5 Carlyle Smartwatch, which is running Wear OS version 2.8 and the July 1, 2019 security patch, for about a week. It has been connected to my Google Pixel 3 throughout this review.

Also read How to use Fossil smartwatch app for your hybrid watch

Fossil Gen 5 Smartwatch review: The big picture

The position of Wear OS is awkward. Wear OS 2, an outdated version of Google’s operating system, is still used on a variety of smartwatches made by top tech and fashion brands. More recently, Wear OS 3, which only functions with the Galaxy Watch 4, was unveiled by Google and Samsung. This is significant because Wear OS 2’s future and the future of the devices that run it remain uncertain, while Google’s focus appears to have shifted to the new OS version.

One of those gadgets is the Fossil Gen 5. Even three years after its release, the Gen 5’s hardware still performs well despite its outdated OS.

The Gen 5 Smartwatch has a few features you won’t find on other devices from the same era, including custom battery modes, a lot of RAM to help with performance, and even a built-in speaker. It is powered by the Snapdragon 3100 chipset.

While it still has competition inside the relatively small Wear OS bubble, it is still one of the best Wear OS 2 watches available today. Can it actually compete with the Samsung, Fitbit, and Apple Watch?

Also read  Garmin Venu Smartwatch Best Review

Fossil Gen 5 Smartwatch review: Design and display

• Display: 1.28-inch AMOLED

  • 416 x 416 resolution
  • 328ppi

• Case size: 44 x 12mm

• Strap size: 22mm

• Weight: 99.79g

The Generation 5 smartwatch will feel right at home if you have any experience with Fossil smartwatches. With a large, bright 1.28-inch AMOLED display, a crisp pixel density of 328ppi, and three programmable pushers on the right side, the middle of which is a rotatable crown, it has a similar overall design to previous Fossil Gen watches. The buttons are simple to press, and the rotating crown offers a nice alternative to using your finger to swipe on that tiny screen. It doesn’t have a rotating bezel like the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic or the older Galaxy Watch, but it will do.

The Carlyle (the model we reviewed), the Julianna, and the more recent Garrett model, which debuted at CES 2020, are the three Gen 5 models. Each one is the same price and offers a selection of strap choices. Although you can purchase variations with metal and leather straps, our review unit has a black silicone strap. Of course, the straps can be changed out for any other 22mm straps you may have lying around.

No functional distinction exists between the three models. They both have a 44 by 12 mm case, but it’s obvious that Fossil Gen is marketing the Julianna to a more feminine audience. While Carlyle models are black and smokey stainless steel, Julianna models come in soft rose gold and pink, rose gold with a tortoiseshell leather strap, rose gold with a silver mesh strap, and yellow-gold with a mesh strap colorways. The Garrett models are a little chunkier and come in five colors: yellow-gold, silver with a black silicone strap, dark grey stainless steel, stainless steel with a blue silicone strap, and stainless steel with a red and blue bezel.

The Fossil Gen 5 Smartwatch is classy, versatile, and a step in the right direction over the Generation 4 watches. It still isn’t my first choice for a workout companion, but luckily it has the hardware you need if that’s what you need it for.

Hardware and performance

• Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100 SoC
• 1GB of RAM
• 8GB of onboard storage
• Three custom battery modes
• GPS

• Heart rate sensor
• NFC
• 3ATM
• Bluetooth/Wi-Fi
  • No LTE connectivity

The Fossil Gen 5 is probably the most feature-rich Wear OS 2 watch you can buy, excluding the $1,000 Montblanc Summit 2, Suunto 7, and Skagen Falster 3. It has the Snapdragon Wear 3100 chip, which although it won’t be brand-new in 2022, is still a solid wearable chipset. Fortunately, the Fossil Gen watch benefits from the upgrade to the 3100 because performance is superb.

The only time I actually noticed the watch stutter was when I opened the Google Play Store’s keyboard. Other than that, there are no issues.

Every Wear OS watch needs the Snapdragon 3100 and 1GB of RAM

The 1GB of RAM, which is almost twice as much as what other Wear OS watches offer, contributes to that buttery smoothness. Fossil also provided an ample 8GB of onboard storage, which is more than enough room for music and apps. For those who enjoy working out while leaving their phone at home, that much ROM is good news.

Additionally, the Fossil Gen watch has an optical heart rate sensor, built-in GPS, and NFC for Google Pay contactless payments. These are typically the first things to go when manufacturers try to reduce costs, so it’s nice to see them included here. It’s obvious that Fossil isn’t trying to save money.

The heart rate sensor used, according to Fossil Gen , is an improvement over the Gen 4’s. During a 2.75-mile outdoor run, I put it to the test against my Wahoo Tickr X chest strap and Garmin Forerunner 245 Music running watch. See the outcomes below:

The Tickr X heart rate strap recorded a maximum heart rate of 148 bpm and an average reading of 117 bpm. This is a little less than what Fossil and the Forerunner reported. The maximum and average heart rate readings from both wearables were actually the same: 164 bpm for maximum and 148 bpm for average. The Forerunner 245 didn’t reach 164 beats per minute until 16 minutes in, whereas the Fossil smartwatch did so at around the 6-minute mark.

In any case, even though they both overshot their readings, the Garmin and Fossil watches were at least able to detect significant heart rate trends throughout the workout. The Garmin and Fossil watches both overshot the maximum and average heart rate readings compared to the chest strap during the two additional runs I took part in while wearing all three of these gadgets.

The smartwatch has an altimeter, accelerometer, and gyroscope built in, and is 3ATM water-resistant, which will please the fitness crowd.

The Fossil Gen 5 connects to Google Fit for fitness tracking. Although I won’t lie, I’m not a huge fan of the platform’s minimalist design. Fortunately, since this is a Wear OS device, if you’d prefer to avoid using Google Fit, you can download a fitness app from a third party to your watch.

It’s a struggle to find any complaints with the Fossil Gen 5’s hardware

The speaker module is perhaps my favorite component of this hardware. This should be a requirement for all Wear OS watches, and thankfully, this pattern is being maintained by more recent gadgets. You can hear things being said back to you when speaking to your watch using Google Assistant. It’s great.

The watch’s speaker can also be used to play music, but I don’t know anyone who would want to do that (probably the same people who like to look at photos on their watch).

The battery life is adequate. It lasts longer than the typical Wear OS 2 watch, which in my experience only lasts about a day, but it is by no means a Fitbit or a Garmin. I can usually get through a whole day without any problems on one charge, but I usually don’t have enough battery left over to wear it overnight for sleep tracking. Expect even less durability if you leave the always-on display on since I had it off.

During a three-mile run with the GPS and heart rate monitor turned on, the smartwatch lost about 10% of its battery.

Since Wear OS doesn’t appear to have the best battery-saving features on its own, Fossil Gen added three additional custom battery modes (for a total of four) to extend the life of your device. The first option is daily mode, which keeps all of the features on at once, including location, the always-on display, NFC, speaker, and everything else. Obviously, this will use up your battery the fastest.

Daily mode is one level below extended battery mode. In this mode, you can schedule Bluetooth to turn on and off at specific times throughout the day. This allows the watch to unpair from your phone before bedtime, saving battery life. In addition, nothing is turned on in this mode besides vibration, notifications, and button-to-wake.

My favorite mode is custom, where you can enable or disable anything. With the exception of the always-on display and NFC, I leave everything on. The Fossil Gen watch could last over a day on a charge thanks to this configuration, but not much longer.

Finally, a time-only mode displays the time, date, and the Fossil logo on a black screen that is not always on. Depending on how much battery you start with, the watch can last days or even weeks on a single charge thanks to this.

Fossil began rolling out these customized battery modes to all of its Gen 5 smartwatches in January 2020, including those that don’t bear the Fossil brand.

The Gen 5 underwent another update in September 2021 to boost its functionality even more. More than 30 watch faces that the majority of users reportedly didn’t use were removed in the revision. The cull released resources on the device.

Wear OS problems and Fossil’s solutions

In the tech world, Wear OS has a bad reputation. Although I can’t say the reputation is undeserved, I believe it to be exaggerated. I am constantly reminded of how convenient it is to have quick access to Google Assistant, Calendar, and the numerous other Google apps I use on a daily basis whenever I strap a Wear OS device to my wrist. Adding the Tiles feature was also a good idea. However, there is one bug that I should point out: I cannot for the life of me get Google News to display headlines in the new Tiles feature. Really, that was the only peculiarity I encountered during the review period.

Wear OS isn’t the buggy mess it once was, and it works fantastically with Android phones.

But I can understand why some people are hesitant to purchase a Wear OS device, particularly one running Wear OS 2. You might have to wait a while for a bug to be fixed if something goes wrong with your device because Google takes its sweet time to release updates (maintenance and major updates). Large feature updates are rare, and this is especially true now that Wear OS 2 is slowly fading into obscurity.

Instead, to make up for Wear OS’ shortcomings, Google turns to independent watchmakers. That’s working out really well for Fossil.

It seems like Google doesn’t focus on Wear OS as much as Fossil Gen does

The Gen 5’s unique battery modes make it possible to achieve all-day battery life, which Wear OS 2 devices typically struggle to achieve. Without enough RAM, the OS can also be quite sluggish and glitchy, but Fossil crammed in more RAM than we’re used to seeing on Wear OS devices from the 2019 generation. This makes sure everything goes smoothly.

Although I don’t believe Wear OS should deter anyone from purchasing the Fossil Gen 5, you should be aware of your obligations. Since the Fossil Gen 5 is ineligible for the Wear OS 3 upgrade, you should stay away from this smartwatch if you want the newest features and ongoing software support.

Fossil Gen 5 Battery Life and Features

The Gen 5 has an accelerometer, altimeter, ambient light sensor, GPS, gyroscope, heart rate monitor, and NFC in its undercarriage. The new Wear 3100 processor from Qualcomm makes using apps and navigating menus feel fluid.

The watch is powered by Google’s Wear OS 2.0, a far cry from Apple Watch OS. The touch interface has a simple navigation system: swipe up to view notifications, swipe down to access the shortcuts menu, swipe left to access tiles, and swipe right to access Google Assistant. Additionally, you can change the order in which the tiles appear and add or remove particular tiles.

You can download additional third-party apps from the Google Play Store, including Pandora, Uber, The Washington Post, and others, in addition to the emergency services app Noonlight and Spotify that come preinstalled. However, the watchOS app store has far more options than the library does, including some that I use frequently, like Facebook Messenger and Bank of America.

Android users can use the speaker and microphone on the watch to take calls and reply to texts as usual. iPhone users can now make and receive calls directly from their WearOS watch for the first time. You can also use the speaker to play music, activate sound alerts for notifications, and hear Google Assistant responses and Google Translate translations. Responses sounded crisp and clear in Google Assistant.

Depending on usage, Fossil claims that the Gen 5 can last more than 24 hours. Battery modes come in four varieties: Daily, Extended, Custom, and Time. During testing, I used Custom mode to disable particular features such as Wi-Fi, location, and tilt-to-wake when the battery was getting low. Similar to the Fossil Sport, I was able to get about 12 hours of use before the battery ran out, but that was with the automatic heart rate readings and always-on display modes turned on. You might be able to get closer to Fossil’s 24-hour estimate if you turn these off.

Value

Fossil Gen 5 Smartwatch review

All Fossil Gen 5 Smartwatch models — the Carlyle, Julianna, Garrett— no matter which strap type you choose.

$300 is a lot of money to spend on a smartwatch, especially one that’s now three years old and running a dated version of Wear OS. However, the Fossil Gen 5 is your best option for a well-working Wear OS 2 device.

Your only choice at the moment is the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 if you really don’t like the Gen 5 for some reason or want a more recent version of Wear OS. With a starting price of $249, it offers a more comprehensive health tracking kit, the assurance of software support, and faster hardware. Right now, it serves as the benchmark for Wear OS devices.

You shouldn’t ignore the Fitbit Versa 3, which competes with and outperforms the Fossil Gen 5, if you’re looking at non-Wear OS options. For a user more interested in health and fitness who needs a device with a long battery life and a price under $200, there is also the Garmin Venu Sq.

You’re not completely out of luck if you use an iPhone though. Even though Apple hasn’t changed much in the past few years, the Apple Watch Series 7 is by far the best smartwatch you can purchase for your iPhone. Additionally, you can receive Bluetooth calls on your Fossil Gen 5 thanks to the company’s exclusive iOS app, making the smartwatch a great choice for iOS users. Notably, Wear OS 3 devices no longer support iOS, so your best option for a Wear OS device for the iPhone is still the Fossil Gen 5.

The last alternative we can provide is the Gen 6 from Fossil Gen. It attempts to improve upon the Gen 5 and largely succeeds, like many sequels. We were disappointed by a few battery problems and the overall sleep tracking, despite the display’s brightness and impressiveness. More significantly, Wear OS 3 will be updated to it in the near future.

Poor Battery performance following Wear OS update?

If the poor battery performance on your Gen 5/6 started following a Wear OS update, you can roll back to the prior wearOS and Google Fit update or wait for a new update.

Last Thoughts

We advise the following actions to maximize battery life on your Wear OS watch without sacrificing features or apps:

1. Turn off Always On Display (AOD.)
2. Toggle on Auto-Brightness.
3. Turn off Tilt to wake.
4. Switch on touch to wake.
5. Keep Bluetooth on and turn off WiFi.
6. Keep location on.
7. Turn off NFC.
8. Switch off Ok Google and wrist gestures.

Fossil Gen 5 Smartwatch review: The verdict

The last alternative we can provide is the Gen 6 from Fossil. It attempts to improve upon the Gen 5 and largely succeeds, like many sequels. We were disappointed by a few battery problems and the overall sleep tracking, despite the display’s brightness and impressiveness. More significantly, Wear OS 3 will be updated to it in the near future.

Fossil nailed it with this smartwatch.

You’ll adore the Fossil Gen 5 if you support Wear OS 2 and don’t mind its limitations. With this watch, Fossil nailed the hardware offering. Just that its software future is still up in the air is unfortunate.