Fossil Gen 6 Hybrid Wellness Edition comes with an E Ink display
Fossil has announced another smartwatch ahead of CES 2023. This one is a new take on its Wellness Edition. The hybrid version comes with an E Ink gray-scale display and long battery life.
The fully featured Gen 6 Wellness Edition was unveiled back in October. It was Fossil’s first watch to come with support from WearOS 3.0 out of the box. A number of other, older generation Fossil watches, have received the update since then.
Much better battery life
A problem of wearOS watches continues to be dismal battery life. The Wellness Hybrid Edition addresses this issue. It has excellent two-week battery life on a full charge. About an hour is enough to charge it from zero to around 80%.
The impressive battery life is largely due to the use of a low power consuming 1.1 inch E Ink gray-scale display with physical watch hands placed over the screen. Interestingly, the E-ink display has a built-in light so that it is visible in the day. But no OLED and wearOS has been repliced by a battery friendly proprietary operating system.
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Other design features of the watch include a 44mm case size, a body made of stainless steel and three physical buttons (crown and two tactile push buttons) on the right. The hybrid is only 11.4mm thick making it a lightweight, unisex device. All of this is water-resistant down to 30 meters (3 ATM).
As far as fitness tracking, the hybrid packs the standard features including automatic workout detection, continuous heart rate tracking and a blood oxygen monitor. You also get VO2Max measurement and your heart rate zones will show on the screen during exercise courtesy of a new Wellness Gauge Dial.
There are also a few smartwatch features sprinkled in. These include support for phone notifications (calls, texts, third-party apps), music controls, and the Alexa voice assistant. The watch also lets you keep an eye out on real-time weather info and an alternate time zone. No built-in speaker, though, so you will need to rely on text notifications.
Fossil Gen 6 Hybrid Wellness Edition will be available for purchase just in time for CES 2023 on Thursday. It will cost $299 in three different case options on the company’s website. For an additional $30, you will be able to pretty it up with a choice of different coloured silicone straps.
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