Fossil sure has a lot of different smartwatches
Fossil’s not messing around here. Back in November, the company announced plans to pick up fitness tracking company Misfit for $260 million, and all the while, it’s been announcing connected wearables under its own name by the boatload. The company’s Q line, home to its various fitness trackers and smartwatches, includes a number of recent additions that were on display this week at IFA in Berlin.
The company is leading with the Q Wander and Marshal models, announced in March, two full-on Android Wear devices that are running on Snapdragon’s Wear 2100. The new chip, which uses around a quarter less power than its predecessor (ever important when dealing with such small batteries and always-on displays) and supports LTE-enabled devices, will also be powering Asus’s newly announced ZenWatch 3.
The show also sees the addition of four new hybrid smartwatches to the Q line, connected devices that work along the same lines as those offered up by Martian. The Crewmaster, Gazer, Nate and Tailor all offer up the same basic functionality in addition to be pretty good looking analog timepieces.
They all do the standard array of fitness tracking including step, distance and calorie count (and can be paired to various health apps), sleep monitoring and notifications. A physical button can also be used as a sort of remote control for the wearer’s smartphone, making it possible to control music a take a picture with a press. The biggest non-aesthetic selling point is almost certainly battery life — the new models can go up to six months using a standard watch battery.
The line starts at $175 and is designed to appeal to a larger audience than the one-size-fits-all approach of companies like Samsung. The Q Crewmaster is big and rugged, the Glazer is a slim and blinged out affair with rose gold coloring, the Nate is pretty standard Fossil business casual design and Tailor is the most understated of the bunch.
The new watches go up for pre-order on the 14th and hit Fossil stores the 26th.
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