Fossil Gen 5 Carlyle Stainless Steel Touchscreen Smartwatch with Speaker, Heart Rate, GPS, Contactless Payments, and Smartphone Notifications

Sorry, fans of the watch from that "other" company: REAL watches are ROUND. This watch is round. I have to say, I love the style of this watch--it's genuine Fossil, and looks sharp. I had to go with the leather band (whose dark brown color goes surprisingly well with the black watch), but I am looking at buying the steel watchband for it since I find those more comfortable. I also own an LG G Watch R in rose gold that looks nice, but the hardware is a few years old now and it's not as snappy as it used to be. But, it is still more than capable. The Fossil is a nice change, and the black case is a nice alternative to the LG! What I like? The buttons on the side do something, even the "stem" that can be rotated in one direction for notifications and in the other for settings. And as I said, the style of it is high quality without looking pretentious (and it's not a ridiculous "rounded square"). There are plenty of Fossil-designed watch faces that can be installed and customized. (I like using Facer, but their app has gotten bloated and drags down the OS on any watch I have tried it on.) Apps are snappy. I don't use the voice features, but it's interesting that is now has a tiny speaker. What I don't like? Battery life is not good. Unless I need to use this a lot more to somehow "calibrate" the battery and the OS, I can't see this lasting throughout a day. Although I admit that I was playing with the watch quite a bit right after I got it. Still, after 20-30 minutes, I don't expect battery life to have dipped into the sub-90% range. Also, the charging pad is rather small. The LG has a nice, large magnetic base that it sits within. This is just a small magnetic charging pad that the Fossil perches on top of. It's a keeper, though! I'm glad I purchased this one on sale, and am looking forward to receiving the steel watch band for it.

This is my 3rd Android/Google smartwatch, and the first one that I purchased brand new. I've been using this watch for just a little over a month now and I'm very pleased with it as a replacement for my LG Urbane2. I never had a SIM card in the LG so battery life was never an issue with the larger battery it had. I only upgraded mainly for 2 reasons, first the microphone died, and second the watch band was breaking. I purchased the LG "refurbished" for $100 and was really happy with it, but since the mic was bad and it was going to cost around$75 for a replacement band it was time to upgrade. The LG was purchased to replace the original Moto 360 I bought used because the battery was failing again. The original lasted over a year for me, the replacement fell just shy of a year. Plus it was an upgrad adding a speaker and the ability to use Google pay on the watch. I wear this watch daily and usually have at least 10% battery life left when I put it in the charger at night. Battery life in I a custom mode with everything turned on except Ok Google detection. This watch so far is just superior to both of my previous smart-watches. My only apprehension buying was to he smaller battery capacity compared to what it replaced. However this makes the watch thinner on my wrist, and for me the size is great! I love that I can use any 22mm standard band on it and change it out easily. That was a big downfall of both of it's predecessors for me requiring special bands. I am by no means a heavy user of the watch. I have been wearing a watch for about 30 years now, I never could adjust to just using my phone. This for me as an automotive technician is great because I don't have to take my gloves off or get grease all over my phone just to see who is calling or texting at that moment. For me the smart-watches are an extension of the phone, and it's great for getting notifications without having to keep the phone in my pocket.

This is my second smartwatch. My first smart watch was a Huawei First Generation. I was very resistant at first getting a smart watch because I hate the square bezel look ( Apple). My Huawei still works but after about four years of ownership the LCD screen has been developing some "artifacts" ( LCD burn in, like the old plasma TVs). I've been watching some smart watches for about 1 year now and had price alerts on them. The Fossil went considerably lower, to a price that I was comfortable with ( well under $200 ). I had to buy it. I had my eye on some Samsung Galaxy which I heard has amazing battery life but since my old watch was using Wear OS Google, I didn't feel like jumping ship to Tizen. So, the good about the watch...it is a very good looking watch. I have the metal bracelet smoke. I like the fact that the screen on the outside is just as big as my Huawei (44mm I think) which isn't big. I have a medium size wrist. It is thinner and much lighter than Huawei 1st generation. The quality of the graphics is top notch. Set up was easy, painless on my Motorola Z4 phone. It stays connected, never drops off bluetooth. I didn't buy it to use the workout functions. They could be great, I don't know but if I wanted a workout watch I would buy an ugly square Garmin or whatever. I like to get texts, answer calls on it, do some speech to text replies. It works great for that. The screen brightness I think it is great. I keep it on auto or brightness at level 2. So, now the bad. Biggest elephant in the room is the battery life. I kept it on the daily battery function with brightness on auto and most of the sensors off, but wifi and bluetooth on. I also keep the screen always on, but obviously it darkness a little after 3-5 seconds. I don't want that function off. I need to be able to see what time it is at a quick glance without needing to touch the screen, buttons, etc. I do get notifications but only messages ( WhatsApp, Viber and Messages). I don't really talk on it. I get about 15-25 WhatsApp messages per day, 20-25 texts and 3-4 Viber texts. I never check heart rate, never use GPS, NFC ( those are off). So my first day with it, the battery lasted 12 hours. My 4 year old Huawei lasts the same.🤔 I know the battery is only slightly bigger in Fossil than the Huawei but c'mon...I was expecting close to 24 hrs. Also, the graphics of watch faces don't seem to cover the whole glass area. There's a tiny portion that isn't covered. Not a big deal but my Huawei is pretty much full screen. So I don't want to say Fossil is a bad watch. Not at all, but let me summarize. If I had paid $295 ( full price) for my Huawei 1st generation, I would still be very pleased. If I would have paid $280 for the Fossil...hmm....😳....not really. Battery let's it down. At the price I paid? I am not dancing with joy but I think is ok. I am torn between three and four stars but battery life is a big deal to me and because of this, I have a hard time giving it a four. So, after a few days of playing with the setting I think I can get 16-18 hrs of battery which I guess it's ok. I turn Wifi Off, NFC off, heart monitoring off and I keep the brightness at 2 which for me is plenty. The watch is otherwise flawless. I decided to give it a four star.

I used to have various Wear OS watches since the first release, and I see this Fossil Gen 5 as an absolute winner. Its design and quality far exceed all alternatives, both past and current. Initially, I hesitated to buy it for $300+ (its list price on the Fossil site) as I used Fossil Gen 3 Explorist and was mostly satisfied with it, but the Black Friday deal convinced me to give a try. And I never ever looked back and have hidden the Explorist immediately. The watch is fast, charges very quickly (more on this below) and has all technologies that it has to (I see zero use in cellular connectivity in the watch, so its lack in Gen 5 doesn't hurt me). I have yet to test NFC as Google Pay doesn't work on watches in most of Europe (brain-dead idea to let it run on the phone and not on the watch), but this is not the watch's fault and I just need to find an alternative payment mechanism to test NFC properly. On the bad side is a low time on battery. I do use heart monitoring every 15 minutes during the day and more frequently at night, and this causes the battery to stay for less than 24 hours. But you know what? Having a *fast* charger and a metal band solves this problem completely - I can easily take the watch off and put it back on, and charging it in twice a day for ~30 minutes in total is much less than charging my Gen 3 Explorist for over 2 hours once a day (and less than any other watch on the market, as I understand it). So, I highly recommend this watch and wish that the vendor continues its great job in the future.

I didn't really see a reason to own a wearable, but I was intrigued and I figured I'd see what all the fuss was about. I wanted something that would sync up effortlessly with my Pixel 3, be highly readable, offer vibe, and have physical buttons. I also wanted a round face (I find the square/rectangular ones ugly) and a metal band. That narrowed the field down considerably. The Galaxy Watch was a strong contender until I realized that many of the features are only active with Galaxy phones. A buddy at work has a Garmin Fenix for twice the price of the Fossil. I ordered the Fossil. Setup went easy and I had it running/synced in minutes. The smoked stainless looks very classy, much better than the cheap, plasticky look of many of these devices. There was plenty room in the bracelet even with my thick wrist - I ended up pulling two links (doable, but not very easy). I was initially disappointed with the size of the digital display font despite the large face, and none of the options on the WearOS app seemed to be "just right". In addition, the battery life was not great for the first couple of days. It took me some doing, but I found a free face on a third party app that looks and works terrific, plus it seems to have extended the battery life. I can go 18+ hours on a full charge with the ambient display and BT on, however the charger works very quickly - popping on the charger for even a few minutes can add several hours. It's grown on me over the past few weeks and I am finding it very convenient to simply glance at it to see if the email/text is worth immediate attention. Sending quick SMS/email replies is simple, either with the suggestions or (amazingly) the tiny keyboard. Also, I get an SMS for dual layer authentication at work,12+ times a day, so that alone makes it very useful. The speakerphone is OK only if you have HD voice. I've toyed with some of the apps like Fit and Cardiogram. They seem to do what they're supposed to do, but I was really in for the productivity. About the only complaint I have is the size of the crown/main button. It's quite large and easy to press, so it's easy to accidentally depress any time I bend my wrist back, though wearing it a little higher on the wrist has helped. I'll edit if anything notable pops up, but for now I'll say that this was a very good choice at the price point.

The Fossil Gen 5 (Carlyle in my case) is one of the most feature-heavy smartwatches that remains affordable for most looking at a watch. I was somewhat hesitant when I saw several reviews bashing the battery life, but as of this review, I've worn it daily for the last month with no problems. I work a typical 9-5, and by the end of the day, my watch is usually sitting at around 75%. This is with the standard battery mode enabled, and with many features (fitness tracker/GPS/etc) enabled. The Fossil gen 5 comes with Wear OS, and as someone who transitioned from Tizen previously, I couldn't be happier. I do wish Google would come through with some major updates, but for now, it functions as it should. The screen is great if you're looking for a bright display with a great pixel density. While the bezel doesn't rotate, the spinning crown is comfortable for anything I have to work with. The Snapdragon Wear 3100 SoC makes the performance a breeze despite being a little aged and performance seems to be on par with even the most loaded watches (such as the Skagen Falster 3) The watch also has 8GB of onboard memory, so if you're a person who often has their watch away from their phone this should be a great perk for you. The fitness tracker seems to be very accurate as well, however, I'm not a fitness expert and have only ever used the built-in trackers from previous smartwatches. Overall, the watch is a great value. I'd highly recommend it for anyone who's looking to purchase their first smartwatch or are transitioning from older hardware.

I will not buy another Fossil. After only 1.5 years of owning this Fossil Gen 5 I'm about to buy a Samsung watch because I'm fed up with recent performance of the Fossil Gen 5. Once bitten... Soon after the warranty expired I started having problems with battery life. The problems seemed to coincide with an update of the Fossil app, but I can't be certain of that. What I know is that certain battery mode options were removed. What's more, the update removed the OEM watch face I was using, and did not offer a new suitable similar watch face. In all fairness, a recent Fossil update restored the watch face that was removed. Despite running the same apps and same settings daily, battery life has always been unpredictable, but it used to last a day. Not so much any more even under very restricted usage. During the first year I was running with Gestures, WiFi, Bluetooth, heart-rate tracking, and NFC on, and without the always-on screen (instead a gesture would turn on the screen). Prior to the update the watch still had 30-50% of life remaining after a workday. Some days it would use battery at a faster rate than other days, and on the worst days it would automatically switch to extended mode in need of a charge. I would put it back on the charger before bed, then at bedtime use it overnight for sleep tracking. Overnight the battery drain was minimal. Now days, after the Fossil update (and after warranty expiration), the battery will run dry in four hours or less using the same settings I was using in the first year. It won't even last for a full night's sleep. Occasionally it will last a workday, but that is rare and I have not been able to figure out why some days are good. I have since turned off gestures, WiFi, and NFC. With those "desired" features disabled I can usually get a full day out of the watch, but at the expense of not using features that I want. And yes...I did do a factory reset hoping that would resolve the problems. No luck. The same issues were evident even before I started putting my few apps back on the watch. Still, and here's that unpredictable part again, occasionally when I take the watch off the charger, with the features still turned off, the watch starts churning through the battery at an alarming rate. In minutes it will turn itself off and the only way to turn it back on is to put it on the charger again. After the watch restarts it will indicate the battery is quite high...like 85%. So why did it shut down? In my opinion paying a premium price for just over one year of good use is not acceptable. I'm hoping my next watch (from Samsung) will be a much better experience. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Original review: Nice looking watch, better battery life than expected. I'm pleased so far with this purchase. I was concerned about the battery life I would get, but so far battery life has not been an issue. Keep in mind that the first day or so the watch will be installing updates and new apps, and you will spend more time with it. But with all of that done, I'm getting well over a full day. It will still have ~25% of battery remaining when I put it back on the charger. This is even after using it all night for sleep monitoring! The only things I've turned off are the Always On display and the "OK Google" detection. For the display, I have activated gestures so that the display comes on when I rotate my wrist. As for OK Google, I just swipe left for the Google Assistant. I have not disabled heart rate tracking, and I let Google Fit monitor (heart/steps) all the time. Otherwise I'd forget to start it for a workout. As for charging, the watch charges to 100% in about an hour. I think the only con I can come up with is that this watch does not work with wireless charging (as do some Galaxy watches). It would be nice to be able to use the wireless back-to-back charging capability from my phone if I'm ever caught out without the phone's own charger. Hopefully Fossil will offer that next time around. As for being a watch, it works nice. It has apps for stopwatch and timers. I've not played much with the watch faces...I just picked one and probably will rarely change it. The watch works well with texting, email (including Outlook), calendar, and weather. I cannot yet speak using the watch for phone calls. I have not yet had an opportunity for a Dick Tracey wrist phone experience. I've recently installed the Sleep as Android app. So far it is impressive for what it is. I wear the watch overnight so I don't have to leave my phone on the bed. I have not yet tried the Cardiogram app. Other apps I've loaded: A great compass app (Steel 3d I think?). Google Pay...works great on the watch! Google Maps is loaded, but I have not used it yet. If you are into disc golf, you can keep score for multiple players on your watch using the UDisc app. I've done so several times and it has mostly worked great. Twice though it had a syncing issue where I had to finish keeping score on my phone. Both times I had opened the phone to access other features of UDisc, after which the watch scoring glitched. I think that's just a syncing bug that UDisc needs to figure out. As for size, I was concerned about that too. I do not like the oversized mongo watches. I prefer something less bulky. This is as large as I would want on my average sized wrists. Anything larger would be too big, I think. Anything smaller would not be usable for a smart watch. I bought the version with the brown leather band. The leather band is very nice...good quality. I also bought an after-market silicone band for playtime. I'd rather preserve the nice leather band for dressier occasions. I avoided buying a smart watch for years because I was not impressed by the battery life and the apps available. I am happy to say that I think they are worth it now. My only fear now is that Google will abandon Wear OS following the Fitbit acquisition. I hope not, because I think Wear OS is just now coming into it's own and can only get better as more developers and manufacturers adopt it.

Use it for last 4 months. Have very mixed feelings. From one hand it has many advantages, but disadvantages just kill customer experience. Support (does it exist?) is not responsive. Now a bit about pros and cons. Advantages: - nice looking. It is very subjective of course, but it is one of the best looking smart watches (for my taste) - durable. By coincidence I was hitting or scratching different surfaces by this watch, they kept it well, screen is still like new - fast charge. Comparing to Galaxy Active 2 this charges are least twice as fast - different battery modes. One can easily switch between them and chose high performance or saving battery Ok things: - battery life. Improved from gen 4 and similar to other rivals - there are some apps. Not too many, but some are useful Disadvantages: - Bluetooth connection. It sucks. Sometimes they are connected, sometimes they disconnect. When you try to switch it back, it is not enough (like manual says) just to tap on Bluetooth connection and then phone. Instead one has to switch off and on Bluetooth, sometimes several times. Sometimes you have to open app on phone and then it connects. - no sleep tracking. They (producers) can’t make sleep tracking!!! 20$ watch have it but this don’t! - GPS sucks. One of the main purposes I bought this watch was to be able to run without phone. This is almost impossible. If you are lucky GPS will connect after 15 minutes, if not - never without your phone, only when you are home and connected to a cell phone. - APP on a phone. Piece of crap. Connection is not stable. Integration between watch and phone is weird - you update, it says it is updated, but steps count on watch and phone are different. Activities can upload for more than a day, although app says it is synced, what the hack? As a conclusion. I’d you like style and look of this watch and do not plan to use it for lots of sport activities - take them, you most probably will be very happy. If you like to use it for sports, sleep tracking - consider another model. Ps. I use them with my IPhone. Maybe Android would allow more, but Apple doesn’t allow much :( Unfortunately I hate Apple Watch and it is problematic to find watches supported by iOS.