When will we see the first Gen 7 Fossil smartwatch?
Many have expected we would see the first Gen 7 Fossil smartwatch over the summer. However, all that has arrived so far this year are a few more Gen 6 timepieces. In this article we look at the potential release date of the next generation device.
The Fossil Gen 6 lineup made its original debut in August 2021 and started shipping in the following month. Gen 6 comes with the 4100+ processor (quad core A53 processors running at 1.7GHz paired with the low power Qualcomm’s BlackGhost co-processor), more accurate heart rate tracking than before, SpO2 sensor and fast charging. Internal memory was also upgraded to 8GB from the 4GB across the board.
We’ve grown accustomed to Fossil releasing the next generation lineup every year. However, 2022 has been different. Now that we are into mid-November its probably safe to say we will not be seeing Gen 7 by the end of this year.
In June we saw a bunch of new Gen 6 hybrids. These came in two distinct design platforms based on the best-selling traditional watches Machine and Stellaand.
That was followed in October by the Gen 6 Wellness Edition watch. It comes with a streamlined look and an upgraded app. And that’s pretty much it this year as far as new Fossil smartwatches.
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A worthy note is that Wellness Edition was the company’s first timepiece that runs on WearOS 3.0. Some older Fossil watches that pack the Qualcomm 4100+ processor received the operating system update a few weeks later.
Fossil Gen 7 next year?
The obvious question is – why didn’t we see a Gen 7 in 2022. The answer to this may have been revealed by a recent Reddit post by a member of Fossil staff.
” Some of you have been hoping for new hardware, like an upgraded chipset. We did debate this one over a year ago but felt that focusing on updating a great product (Gen 6) to Wear OS 3 and removing dependencies on new chipsets, supply chain issues (which also drove huge cost increases on new chips/RAM/etc), and the unknown timing for Wear OS 3 on that hardware made this the best course of action”, he says.
“And we’re really excited about our new launch – Gen 6 Wellness Edition — super well designed case by our Swiss design team and really great for 24/7 use.”
He throws into the post some of the positives of the Gen 6. This includes hardware which is very competitive at the price point, super-fast charging, a fast processor and more. There is no ECG but there has been no huge interest in that type of functionality. Beyond that Gen 6 is not missing important health features – he goes on to say.
“Summing this one up, Gen 6 is a very performant, feature-rich platform. 4100+ is still a great chipset. These watches have everything you need in great designs and you’ll see some very competitive, everyday, pricing this fall.”
This is a pretty accurate assesment of the situation. Of course, there is room for improvement such as the new Qualcomm Snapdragon W5+ platform, additional health sensors, improved battery life to name a few. Plus an LTE option would be nice. Unlike Gen 5, Gen 6 has no cellular edition.
Which brings us to the potential release date. You can pretty much strike off 2022. We’re not going to see a Gen 7 this year.
CES 2023 in Las Vegas falls in early January. This is an excellent tech launch platform. So that remains a (very) distinct possibility. However, we have not seen any new watches go through the FCC. We should have seen them by now if a Gen 7 will launch in the near future. Such devices need to be approved by the US regulator ahead of launch.
Our best guess is that we will see the first Fossil Gen 7 watches during the summer of 2023. Or perhaps in late spring. Don’t be surprised if a few new Gen 6 watches land before then.
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