Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsUpdated: Would not buy again. Battery issues began soon after warranty expiration
Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2021
I will not buy another Fossil. After only 1.5 years of owning this Fossil Gen 5 I'm about to buy a Samsung watch because I'm fed up with recent performance of the Fossil Gen 5. Once bitten...
Soon after the warranty expired I started having problems with battery life. The problems seemed to coincide with an update of the Fossil app, but I can't be certain of that. What I know is that certain battery mode options were removed. What's more, the update removed the OEM watch face I was using, and did not offer a new suitable similar watch face. In all fairness, a recent Fossil update restored the watch face that was removed.
Despite running the same apps and same settings daily, battery life has always been unpredictable, but it used to last a day. Not so much any more even under very restricted usage.
During the first year I was running with Gestures, WiFi, Bluetooth, heart-rate tracking, and NFC on, and without the always-on screen (instead a gesture would turn on the screen). Prior to the update the watch still had 30-50% of life remaining after a workday. Some days it would use battery at a faster rate than other days, and on the worst days it would automatically switch to extended mode in need of a charge. I would put it back on the charger before bed, then at bedtime use it overnight for sleep tracking. Overnight the battery drain was minimal.
Now days, after the Fossil update (and after warranty expiration), the battery will run dry in four hours or less using the same settings I was using in the first year. It won't even last for a full night's sleep. Occasionally it will last a workday, but that is rare and I have not been able to figure out why some days are good. I have since turned off gestures, WiFi, and NFC. With those "desired" features disabled I can usually get a full day out of the watch, but at the expense of not using features that I want.
And yes...I did do a factory reset hoping that would resolve the problems. No luck. The same issues were evident even before I started putting my few apps back on the watch.
Still, and here's that unpredictable part again, occasionally when I take the watch off the charger, with the features still turned off, the watch starts churning through the battery at an alarming rate. In minutes it will turn itself off and the only way to turn it back on is to put it on the charger again. After the watch restarts it will indicate the battery is quite high...like 85%. So why did it shut down?
In my opinion paying a premium price for just over one year of good use is not acceptable. I'm hoping my next watch (from Samsung) will be a much better experience.
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Original review: Nice looking watch, better battery life than expected.
I'm pleased so far with this purchase. I was concerned about the battery life I would get, but so far battery life has not been an issue. Keep in mind that the first day or so the watch will be installing updates and new apps, and you will spend more time with it. But with all of that done, I'm getting well over a full day. It will still have ~25% of battery remaining when I put it back on the charger. This is even after using it all night for sleep monitoring!
The only things I've turned off are the Always On display and the "OK Google" detection. For the display, I have activated gestures so that the display comes on when I rotate my wrist. As for OK Google, I just swipe left for the Google Assistant. I have not disabled heart rate tracking, and I let Google Fit monitor (heart/steps) all the time. Otherwise I'd forget to start it for a workout.
As for charging, the watch charges to 100% in about an hour. I think the only con I can come up with is that this watch does not work with wireless charging (as do some Galaxy watches). It would be nice to be able to use the wireless back-to-back charging capability from my phone if I'm ever caught out without the phone's own charger. Hopefully Fossil will offer that next time around.
As for being a watch, it works nice. It has apps for stopwatch and timers. I've not played much with the watch faces...I just picked one and probably will rarely change it. The watch works well with texting, email (including Outlook), calendar, and weather.
I cannot yet speak using the watch for phone calls. I have not yet had an opportunity for a Dick Tracey wrist phone experience.
I've recently installed the Sleep as Android app. So far it is impressive for what it is. I wear the watch overnight so I don't have to leave my phone on the bed. I have not yet tried the Cardiogram app.
Other apps I've loaded: A great compass app (Steel 3d I think?). Google Pay...works great on the watch! Google Maps is loaded, but I have not used it yet.
If you are into disc golf, you can keep score for multiple players on your watch using the UDisc app. I've done so several times and it has mostly worked great. Twice though it had a syncing issue where I had to finish keeping score on my phone. Both times I had opened the phone to access other features of UDisc, after which the watch scoring glitched. I think that's just a syncing bug that UDisc needs to figure out.
As for size, I was concerned about that too. I do not like the oversized mongo watches. I prefer something less bulky. This is as large as I would want on my average sized wrists. Anything larger would be too big, I think. Anything smaller would not be usable for a smart watch.
I bought the version with the brown leather band. The leather band is very nice...good quality. I also bought an after-market silicone band for playtime. I'd rather preserve the nice leather band for dressier occasions.
I avoided buying a smart watch for years because I was not impressed by the battery life and the apps available. I am happy to say that I think they are worth it now. My only fear now is that Google will abandon Wear OS following the Fitbit acquisition. I hope not, because I think Wear OS is just now coming into it's own and can only get better as more developers and manufacturers adopt it.
