It’s Over for Fossil Smartwatches

A week ago, we told you to head on over to Fossil’s online store to grab one of their last-remaining Wear OS smartwatches that had been dropped to $79. While we made sure you understood to not expect much going forward should you buy one, the price was so good that interested parties needed to know that they had an inexpensive opportunity to test out the smartwatch waters.

Now that we’ve moved forward a week, it looks like Fossil has officially cleared house, bringing an end to the era of Fossil the smartwatch maker. If you cruise into their “Smartwatches” tab (here), it now reads, “We are sorry, but no results were found.” That same link returned a long list of discounted watches only days ago. Smartwatches running Wear OS that once retailed for $299 were dropped to $79 as a way to get rid of all remaining watches.

It’s over – Fossil has exited the Wear OS and hybrid smartwatch world.

It’s somewhat sad to see this all play out. There was a time when Fossil was about the only company keeping Google’s Wear OS alive. They actually made some decent watches too, even if they still included their fair share of issues. It was always fun to see new watches from Fossil enter the space at CES each year, but when they stayed silent to kick off 2024, only to confirm they were done, we couldn’t help but nod in sorrow.

Look, Google killed off most 3rd party Wear OS watchmakers when it made a deal with Samsung to bring them back to Wear OS with the Galaxy Watch 4. They worked on Wear OS 3 alongside Samsung and removed all other players from the situation. It forced companies like Fossil to sit in the dark, attempt to sell watches a full OS version behind for a full year, tasked them with creating their own custom companion app, and also made it incredibly difficult for older watches to upgrade once an update was available.

Samsung certainly makes quality watches, Google has its own Pixel Watch line to sell you, and we at least have OnePlus doing their best now, but the lack of others entering this space is unfortunate. I think there really is opportunity here, especially with recent advancements in smartwatches, yet no one is really stepping up to try. We love choice and there just aren’t many in Wear OS any longer.