Fossil Wear OS won’t be getting an upgrade. The company’s executives Steve Prokup and Greg McKelvey stated that the company’s existing Wear OS watches won’t get upgraded to the new combined Wear software platform from Samsung and Google.
Instead, Fossil plans a premium watch that Prokup said would have major hardware upgrades, and existing watches will probably be discounted as budget options.
Fossil Wear OS Excluded from Upgrade
According to CNET, The Gen 6 watch from Fossil should have features similar to that of the upcoming watches from Google and Samsung, with better performances, longer battery life, new chips, and even LTE cellular options.
McKelvey stated that all of the software benefits that Google’s talking about and launching with the unified platform is something that they will be building into that too, according to TechRadar.
Both Samsung and Google announced in May at Google I/O that they would combine Wear OS and Samsung’s Tizen into a new platform, creating one central smartwatch OS for Android.
Also Read: Google Confirms Initiative of Launching ‘Hey Google’ Detection Fix on Wear OS
The Fossil executives did not give much insight into what buttons or crowns the company may use in its next line of Wear OS watch.
Prokup stated in the interview with CNET that he thinks people are still going to see a variety of offerings across even their products, as well as manufacturers, not so much that people are going to have a watch that ends up having four to six dedicated buttons or no buttons at all.
Google and Samsung Merge with Tizen
On May 18, an alliance was formed between Google and Samsung as both companies announced that they are essentially combining Wear OS, which is Google’s operating system, and the Tizen-based software platform that has been foundational to Samsung’s wearables for many years.
The resulting platform is currently being referred to simply as Wear, though that might not be the product’s final name.
The benefits of the joint effort include significant improvements to battery life, 30% faster loading times for apps, and smoother animations. It also simplifies life for developers and will create one central smartwatch OS for the Android platform.
Google is also promising a greater selection of apps and watch faces than its previous models, according to the The Verge.
Wired listed elaborate details on what is to come, including the tidbit that Samsung will stick with its popular rotating bezel on future devices, but it is finished making Tizen-only smartwatches.
There will be a version of Google Maps that works standalone, which means that you can access Google Maps without your phone nearby, and a YouTube Music app that supports offline downloads. Spotify will support offline downloads on Wear smartwatches too.
Samsung confirmed that its next Galaxy Watch will run on this unified platform. In addition, the future premium Fitbit devices will also run the software.
Aside from merging the technologies of both platforms, the new Wear OS will include improvements that make it easier to multitask between wrist apps. In addition, some of Fitbit’s most popular fitness tracking features will also be included to help the platform evolve as a health tool.
Related Article: Google to Allow Third-Party Developers to Create Tiles for Wear OS, Device Set to be Launched in Spring 2021
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Written by Sophie Webster
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