Fossil is Quitting Smartwatches (theverge.com) 16
Fossil Group has decided to call it quits on smartwatches. The company announced Friday that it would leave the smartwatch business and redirect resources to its less-smart goods instead. From a report: The company has been one of the most prolific makers of Wear OS smartwatches over the years, and its absence will leave a large gap in the market. "As the smartwatch landscape has evolved significantly over the past few years, we have made the strategic decision to exit the smartwatch business," Fossil spokesperson Amanda Castelli tells The Verge. "Fossil Group is redirecting resources to support our core strength and the core segments of our business that continue to provide strong growth opportunities for us: designing and distributing exciting traditional watches, jewelry, and leather goods under our own as well as licensed brand names." This means that the Gen 6, which first launched in 2021, will be the last Fossil smartwatch. Castelli says the company will continue to keep existing Wear OS watches updated "for the next few years."
That's a shame... (Score:5, Interesting)
I recently bought a Fossil, and it's quite nice. I like the ePaper display, because it leads to a 2-week battery life. When you first set up the app, you come to a feedback screen. I gave feedback on a couple of points, figuring I was just yelling into the abyss. I got an actual reply from an actual human. A few weeks later, the points I mentioned had been addressed. Possibly coincidence, of course, but still: it was nice to know that feedback was actually being read.
Re: (Score:2)
I've been looking at their "hybrids" and never found one I like, but I agree, this is sad.
Smart watches are a bit like the electrocarts, there are precious few that have enough features of the real thing and look sufficiently like one to make you want them.
And those that try a novel approach end up dead, like the pebble.
Re:That's a shame... (Score:4, Interesting)
I suspect that Fossil has found that since electronics are cheap and styling is easy to copy they're being priced out of the smart watch market. When the Amazon band shut down (and they gave me my money back and made it extremely easy to recycle, the way it should be) I bought an almost identical device with almost all the same features and the same 10-15 day battery life for $35 (have to admit that I really miss the interface on the Amazon band though). I've seen smart watches very similar to the Fossil ones for less than a third of the price. If people just want a smart watch they're not going to pay Fossil's branding premium, that's mostly for people who just want to show off their purchase.
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You've never bought a Fossil watch, have you? They're not cheap. They're also pretty innovative, having had smart watches even before the category really existed around the turn of the millennium (they used PalmOS back then).
Likely though, the luxury watch market is getting squeezed - you have Apple basically dominating the space, and Fossil having to deal with the
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What feedback did you give and how was it addressed?
This is why (Score:5, Insightful)
Castelli says the company will continue to keep existing Wear OS watches updated “for the next few years.”
And this is why when a company does this, all source and firmware should be released under an open license. People who bought these will be left with, at best, a insecure device. At worse a brick.
I just gave a watch that is over 150 years old to my nephew, it still works fine. But these smart watches will never last anywhere near that long as their companies are either bought out or the do what fossil just did. Time for our government to get off their butts and do something.
I dread to see what happens to EVs, will an EV still be usable 130 years from now like antique cars are now ? I dread to see how software is updated in those as manufactures change hands. No wonder landfills are filling up with toxic waste.
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I dread to see what happens to EVs, will an EV still be usable 130 years from now like antique cars are now ? I dread to see how software is updated in those as manufactures change hands. No wonder landfills are filling up with toxic waste.
A current gasoline-powered car today has more computers in it than an EV - Managing the ignition, emissions and a myriad of other things - So this issue of cars not lasting a century is not EV-specific.
(That being said, in 130 years, a tinkerer will plug in their qua
Re: This is why (Score:2)
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I dare to say that software won't be the main problem with EVs. It will be finding the correct model for replacement battery which is not fabricated for a long time.
In this scenario, I guess people soon will notice that EVs mass production need to come together with strong reusing/recycling policies.
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My mom's friends who restore '50s and early-'60s cars say that the replacement parts are considerably better than the original because of the improvements in metallurgy and manufacturing. They needed some weird piece one time and found a shop that could 3-D print it for cheaper than a machine shop could manufacture it.
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Yeah, it's just a thought, but I guess things could be a bit different when it comes to batteries (not the other auto parts, which may be easier to build).
Maybe there will be third-party manufacturers who will continue to make legacy battery packs, and then it's all good.
But maybe not. In that scenario, if cars aren't recycled, they will essentially become huge paperweights. Time will tell.
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There are Baker Electrics from 100+ years ago that still function, at least to the extent that any gas car from that era "functions".
Misfit (Score:3)
The Shine 2 was the coolest, prettiest, simplest activity tracker around. I got used to my Garmin vivofit now, it's okay. But it holds no candle to the style of that black UFO.
A sign of supply problems? (Score:1)