Google and Qualcomm finally became serious about their position in the wearable market in the last couple of months by introducing a new chip and a software update to rescue the dying Wear OS ecosystem. And Fossil’s new Sport smartwatch might be the white knight they’ve been looking for. The Fossil Sport, in addition to featuring all the usual bells and whistles of a smartwatch, comes with Qualcomm’s latest Wear 3100 chip which promises better efficiency and the much cleaner, redesigned Wear OS update, all for $255 (read as not $1000).
The Fossil Sport’s biggest highlight is indeed the Qualcomm Wear 3100 processor which itself could be the last chance Google has in the wearable market. With Wear 3100, smartwatches are able to last longer thanks to a new coprocessor and have better response rates. Although that doesn’t quite mean a several-day battery life. The Fossil Sport is rated to offer only an all-day endurance or a little more if you’re careful with the settings. You can, however, get two more days if you switch off all the “smart” features and use it as a dumb watch.
The real challenge for the Fossil Sport won’t be endurance, though. It’s performance. Wear OS smartwatches are known to be sluggish and sadly, the new Wear 3100 doesn’t quite do anything to fix that.
Apart from that, the Fossil Sport is loaded with hardware. For starters, it comes in two sizes — 41mm and 43mm and a design that simply seems like a more colorful, sportier version of a few recent Fossil watches. The Fossil Sport also has NFC, GPS, and an integrated heart rate sensor.
The Fossil Sport costs $255 for both the sizes and will be available on the company’s website starting November 12th. Buyers living in New York can even acquire it through pop-up shops from November 9-11th.