Skip to main content

Fossil launches 3 hybrid smartwatches that work with your Android phone

Fossil is one of the companies that seem to have wholeheartedly embraced Android Wear — it has full Android Wear devices in the Q Founder, Q Wander, and Q Marshall — but it’s not done with smartwatches just yet. The company just launched three more “hybrid” smartwatches — watches that look and feel like standard analog watches, but which have a number of smart features under the hood.

The watches, called the Emporio Armani, Kate Spade, and the Diesel, aren’t Android Wear devices, but they do work perfectly well with your Android phone.

Recommended Videos

Let’s start with the Emporio Armani. The device comes in five different versions, with options including a stainless steel bracelet, a black bracelet, a rose gold and brown leather strap, stainless steel and blue leather strap, and a gun metal and black leather strap.

fossil-watches
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The Kate Spade watch is available in three models, including a rose gold and black leather strap, a silver with gray leather strap, and a gold with pale pink leather strap.

Last but not least is the Diesel watch, which also comes in five versions. All of the options include a stainless steel casing, with strap options including black, brown, and dark brown.

So what makes these watches so smart? Well, under the hood they can track your activity and vibrate for notifications. Not only that but the buttons on the side of the watch can perform rudimentary smart tasks, such as checking your fitness progress or remotely controlling your camera. The best part of a hybrid, however, is the battery life — since there’s no display, the watch lasts a hefty six months on a single charge.

The Kate Spade watch will be available in early 2017 for $250. Both the Diesel and the Armani are set to be released to the public later in December, however, we don’t know how much they will cost just yet.

Christian de Looper
Christian de Looper is a long-time freelance writer who has covered every facet of the consumer tech and electric vehicle…
Digital Trends’ Top Tech of CES 2023 Awards
Best of CES 2023 Awards Our Top Tech from the Show Feature

Let there be no doubt: CES isn’t just alive in 2023; it’s thriving. Take one glance at the taxi gridlock outside the Las Vegas Convention Center and it’s evident that two quiet COVID years didn’t kill the world’s desire for an overcrowded in-person tech extravaganza -- they just built up a ravenous demand.

From VR to AI, eVTOLs and QD-OLED, the acronyms were flying and fresh technologies populated every corner of the show floor, and even the parking lot. So naturally, we poked, prodded, and tried on everything we could. They weren’t all revolutionary. But they didn’t have to be. We’ve watched enough waves of “game-changing” technologies that never quite arrive to know that sometimes it’s the little tweaks that really count.

Read more
Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards
Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Read more
How does Garmin measure stress, and is it really accurate?
Garmin Vivomove Sport dial close up. Credits: Garmin official.

Garmin watches are known for their robust activity tracking, but that's not all these fitness watches can do. Over the years, the company has been adding wellness features to its lineup of watches. These new health-focused metrics allow people to analyze their fitness and identify outside factors affecting their performance. One such factor is stress, which is something Garmin watches actively measures.
But you may be wondering—exactly how does Garmin measure stress? In this article, we break down how Garmin measures stress and delve into the accuracy of this metric. Should you trust your stress score? Read on to find out.

Is Garmin's stress score accurate?

Read more