Fossil’s Wear OS exit is now complete

Summary

• Fossil was once a major player in the Wear OS market.
• The company is now exiting the smartwatch space for good, with no stocks left in its online store.
• Fossil promises to update its existing Wear OS watches for the foreseeable future.

Google teamed up with Samsung to revive Wear OS and the Android smartwatch segment in 2021. It then launched its first smartwatch — the Pixel Watch — in 2022. The move has worked, with Wear OS projected to account for 27% of the smartwatch market by the end of 2024. Amidst all this, Fossil, which was once a major smartwatch player in the Wear OS 2 era, decided to give up on smartwatches for good. The company’s exit from the market is complete, as it appears to have exhausted its entire stock of Wear OS smartwatches.

If you visit the smartwatch section on Fossil’s website, you will see a “We are sorry, but no results were found” message (via Droid Life). This comes just a few days after the company held a fire sale on its online store, offering its Wear OS watches for $79. Some users report seeing the Gen 6 Wellness Edition still on sale for $79, but its stock should also run out soon.

If you still fancy owning a Fossil Wear OS watch, check third-party retailers like Amazon or Best Buy, as they might have some models in stock.

Fossil revealed in January this year that exiting the smartwatch business is a “strategic decision.” It will redirect the freed-up resources to “support our core strength and the core segments of our business that continue to provide strong growth opportunities for us.” On the plus side, if you grabbed a Fossil Wear OS smartwatch for cheap, you will be happy to know that the company has promised to update its existing wearables “for the next few years.”

Does that mean the company will update its existing watches to Wear OS 4? That’s unclear and unlikely to happen. If Fossil intended to upgrade its existing watches to the latest Wear OS release, it would not have exited the smartwatch market in the first place.

Blame Google for Fossil exiting the Wear OS market

Google is as much to blame as Fossil for its exit from the smartwatch segment. Google first abandoned the platform for good and then, during its revival, gave Samsung preferential treatment. Instead, it should have worked closely with all major Wear OS players, helping them upgrade their existing watches to the newest Wear OS release.

OnePlus is the only other major brand in the Android smartwatch field, aside from Samsung and Google. Mobvoi, once a key player, has also failed to capitalize on the Wear OS 3/4 launch to expand its product portfolio.