Customer Ratings & Reviews

PROS - Great looking hardware - Large sharp screen - Large band selection CONS - Single Day Battery - Google Wear OS sometimes slow - Too heavy for workouts SUMMARY This is a stylish everyday smartwatch for somebody looking to replace their standard watch, but this probably isn’t the activity tracker people want. HARDWARE This is clearly a Fossil watch – a bold face with large buttons and a great feeling design. They did everything right in terms of the build of the watch. It has a great weight to it and feels durable and ready to take on your everyday life. The smoke color in brushed stainless steel looks great and is holding up well with no scratches. The face of the watch is large at 45mm and houses a bright AMOLED screen. The screen has good responsiveness and is sharp making it easy to read. There are 2 programmable buttons that you can set to any app. Finally, the dial allows you to scroll and is used to access the app drawer when pressed. The band is metal and is in the same color as the body – Fossil sells a number of different bands in this same color so you can change the look – pinch pins on the reverse side make it easy to swap. The design is water resistant so you don’t have to worry about it in your day-to-day when washing your hand or doing dishes. SETUP The packaging is slick and the watch setup was straight forward for my android device. The watch band was very large out of the box for my wrist and sadly didn’t include an tool for sizing, though a quick trip to my local Fossil store got me perfectly fitted for it and ready to go. Out of the box the watch was noticeably slow and did stutter quite a bit. However, after installing the latest update performance improved dramatically. For certain apps like Google Pay you’ll have to setup your cards again – it is a little redundant since the watch seems to operate more independently from your phone rather than an extension of it. DAILY USE/SOFTWARE In daily use this is a great smartwatch, especially if you are already a traditional watch wearer. The HR and health tracking features mean you get a great idea of your Calorie burn throughout the day. The smoke color goes great with almost any outfit and the band options mean you have an opportunity to mix your style up. Google Pay integrates well with this watch – I programmed one of the buttons to launch Pay which made it fast to pay (at merchants that support it). The number of apps you can get from the Play Store make it easy to add functionality like Maps, checking the weather, or even calling an Uber. There is also the ability to change the watch faces to something matching a classic Fossil design or other more contemporary faces. There is a microphone on the device but Google Assistant was always too slow returning a response to be useful. Overall, the software and versatility is a great sell. EXERCISING This watch is a great everyday replacement, but in my testing the weight and size don’t make it great for exercising. When running with the watch my wrist started to hurt and two miles into my run it was becoming too uncomfortable. There are a lot of exercises that you can track – either directly within Google Fit or through other apps that you download through the Play Store. This is good and bad: the flexibility of being able to download apps means you can track almost anything – the bad news is that you may end up with a large number of tracking apps and navigating some of them on small screen can be frustrating. It seemed to do a good job tracking my runs and showed results similar to my Fitbit on my opposite wrist. It does have storage and the ability pair Bluetooth headphones which means you can leave your phone behind and use the Explorist for wireless audio – which is a nice feature add. Overall, if you are looking for a stylish watch to replace your standard watch this one will fit the bill with exercising features in tow – but I don’t feel that exercising is the highlight of this watch, but albeit a great capability to have for those who want it.

I have really enjoyed this new watch. It has wonderful features and I have gotten positive comments from both family and friends

Including the new Fossil Gen 4 Explorist, I have owned five smart watches over the last few years. So far, this is my favorite one. It is built incredibly tough. I was never much for metal bands before but this one is very comfortable. Although it does have a large screen, it is a bit thinner than some other watches and is overall very comfortable. I personally really like the screen. Easy to read, bright with good color & contrast. I love the dials on the side. Easy to customize and give you the old school watch look & feel. If you are already familiar with the Wear OS, then you will be right at home. If not, it is still very easy to pair with your phone. In fact, this was probably the easiest watch to connect that i have had yet. And I might ad it STAYS connected! Every single smartwatch that I have had before this one couldn't make it thru the day without either rebooting or loosing its Bluetooth connection. So far, I have had neither issue with this watch. As for functions, everything you would expect is hear. Notifications for calls, text, social media and so on. The heart rate monitor seems to be accurate and the various health tracking functions work well. I primarily like to use a smartwatch for the notifications. Being on the road all day, it's nice to be able to just look at my wrist when a notification comes in. And I can also say that I actually get my notifications. Some other watches seem to be hit & miss with that. Now for battery life. This is always a sticking point with smartwatches. Much like your phone, how much you ask of it will have everything to do with battery life. They claim around 24 hours of battery life. With my use, I can easily go well beyond that. With taking it off the charger at 6am, I can easily have 50+ % left when I go to bed around 10pm. And that is with the always on display. Now if I were to max out the brightness, constantly have the heart rate monitor and other fitness activities going along with getting notifications for everything under the sun, then I am sure I wouldn't make it thru the day. But that would be true with any other watch as well. In fact, of the watches I have this one easily last the longest. Battery estimates for any electronic device are always going to be best case scenarios that require only the bare minimum running. So with that said, I can highly recommend the Fossil Gen 4 Explorist. I am certain this will last me a very long time.

I absolutely Love my watch the best watch I’ve actually owned that’s descent. Highly recommend

This watch has been great connecting with my Note 9. And it is the perfect size for working out and everyday use.

These watches are the best smartwatches but they are very good watches nonetheless.

So easy to set up and so easy to use once set up. just wish it was able to make and receive phone calls.

Great watch and stylish. Fossil kept its watch updated in par and above with brands like Samsung and apple.

My husband loved this watch as a gift. He's really putting it to good use. Very fashionable and comfortable.

Using with a google pixel and it works wonderfully. Lots of fun and convenient and easy to use.

Bought this for my son. Quality is excellent and looked very nice on him.

The watch is excellent, I can access the information in my phone easily. Full of fun

Great looking watch but had to recharge during the day. Not good for those that wear it just for normal use.

Very nice, looks like traditional watch, but, functioning like a smart watch

Easier to operate. Ecosystem seems more developed and expands at a reasonable pace

Bought it for my son, he loves it. He has an apple phone and works grwat

I'm glad they added the heart rate monitor feature. Great all around watch!

I have owned three Android smart watches and this is by far my favorite.

Very clean looking finish. Bought as a gift and was very happy with it.

Excellent one and worth for the money. It suits for iPhone as well.