Fossil’s teaser of “way faster” Gen 6 watches follows recent FCC filing
Fossil has teased the soonish arrival of Gen 6 smartwatches earlier today. This follows a recent FCC filing of what may be three new new timepieces due to land before the end of September.
The company sent out an email with a poster image “Gen 6 is coming”. Fossil added that the watches will be “way faster”. Not really surprising considering we are expecting them to pack the latest Qualcomm chip.
Not really too much in terms of detail, but no doubt as the release date approaches we’ll get more in the form of teasers. We are expecting the watches to land next month. What leads us to this conclusion is a recent FCC filing.
The FCC filing for possible Gen 6 watches
Three Fossil Group smartwatches have appeared at the FCC in late June. These seem more exciting than the hybrid that was also registered around that time. In fact, they are probably the first Gen 6 watches.
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The company has a naming convention where one of the letters stands for the sub-brand. In this case it is the letter “F”. This is how we know this is Fossil watch and not one from its many sub-brands.
The models go under the monikers “DW13F1”, “DW13F2” and “DW13M1”. The first two on this list are Fossil watches as indicated by F1 and F2. The DW10F1 watch is Gen 5 Fossil Carlyle HR smartwatch. The DW11F1 are Gen 5E watches. DW12F1 is another 5E variant.
Which means that there’s a good chance DW13F1 and F2 might be the first Gen 6 watches. We don’t see any point releasing Gen 5 or Gen5E watches at this stage. It wouldn’t make sense.
The third watch ends with “M1”. A Fossil Group sub-brand that begins with the letter M is Michele. And it has dished out a few watches (including a hybrid) in the past. And there’s of course Michael Kors which is a more likely candidate.
The FCC paperwork reveals the three devices are electrically identical and that the different model names are “for marketing purposes”. The watches were received on January 15th for testing.
As far as possible specs, it’s anyone’s guess at this stage. Gen 5E watches come with the Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100 processor but are missing some Gen 5 features such as built-in GPS, altimeter, the 3 programmable buttons on the side and the slightly larger screen. They also come with 4GB storage instead of 8GB.
Gen 6 will certainly pack the Wear 4100 processor and enhancements across the board. The new processor should enable better performance. Hopefully they’ll also come with longer battery life and real glue holding everything in place. Some Fossil watches are known to have the issue with the latter.
The company has confirmed Gen 6 watches will be compatible with Wear OS 3.0. Unfortunately, Google has said these watches won’t actually be getting the new version of the operating system until well into 2022.
Fossil Gen 6 – likely release date
As far as a possible release date, the FCC filing shows September 25th 2021 as the date the short-term confidentiality clause runs out. We would expect to see the watches earlier that month. Lots of companies release new devices in late August and September, ahead of the all-important end-year shopping period.
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