Fossil confirms its current watches won’t get the new version of Wear OS

At Google I/O 2021, Google detailed its bold plan to rebuild the Wear OS platform in partnership with Samsung. As part of this endeavor, Google and Samsung will combine the best of Wear OS, Fitbit, and Tizen to build a unified platform for smartwatches. But it looks like this major upgrade won’t be coming to the existing Fossil watches.

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In a recent interview with CNET, Fossil Group’s Chief Commercial Officer, Greg McKelvey, and senior vice president, Steve Prokup, detailed a new Fossil smartwatch that will launch this fall with the new iteration of Wear OS. Fossil’s Gen 6 smartwatch will be a premium offering and will combine “all of the software benefits that Google’s talking about and launching with the unified platform.” Prokup said the next-gen smartwatch would pack “pretty major hardware upgrades.”

Alongside detailing the upcoming flagship smartwatch, Fossil executives confirmed that the existing Fossil Wear OS-powered smartwatches wouldn’t be upgraded to the new Wear OS platform. That means Fossil Gen 5 series, as well as smartwatches from Fossil’s other brands such as Skagen and Diesel, will not be making a jump to Google’s new Wear OS software. Although Fossil didn’t specify reasons for not upgrading the current smartwatches, it’s likely that the hardware on these smartwatches might not be capable of running or supporting all the new features that the next generation of Wear OS will come with.

According to CNET, Fossil aims to focus on a single premium smartwatch for the next wave of Google watches. Fossil executives also hinted that launching budget-friendly options based on the new Wear OS platform won’t be a priority. Instead, the company will eventually discount the pricing of existing smartwatches.

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Featured image: Fossil Gen 5

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