Features:

  • Smartwatches powered with wear OS by Google work with iPhone and Android phones
  • Heart rate and activity tracking using Google fit; Built-in GPS for Distance tracking; swimproof design 3Atm; responses from Google assistant - it’s your own personal Google, always ready to help; speed through checkout with your watch using Google pay
  • This is one smart watch - Receive smartphone notifications and app Alerts, manage your calendar, control your music, Download third party apps (your favorite ride-sharing or music apps), and customize your watch face; touchscreen functionality, built-in fitness Tracker, Microphone, music storage and controls, custom goal and Alarm settings, calendar Alerts, Multiple Time Zones, weather, LED Flashlight, wireless syncing
  • Estimated 24 hour Battery Life, Based on usage plus 2 additional days in low-power mode; magnetic usb rapid Charger included; charge UP to 80 percent in under an hour
  • Classic design. Modern tech. This 45mm explorist hr (heart rate) touchscreen smartwatch lets you track your heart rate, Receive notifications, customize your Dial and more; case size: 45mm; Band size: 22mm; interchangeable with all Fossil 22mm bands; easily change your watch band with quick release pins; imported
Best looking Wear OS brand you can buy.

Got this for myself to replace the previous Gen 3 I sold. I always thought "I don't NEED the HR sensor, NFC payments, or built-in GPS" that the Gen 3 didn't have. Well, you don't need it, but it does come in handy lol. Sometimes certain luxuries are cool to have. Being a Fossil, it's a beautiful watch of course. It's comfortable, somewhat light, and no bulkier than a regular watch. The faces Fossil provides are cool as well. For those wondering about battery life, if you have any experience with Wear OS (Android) watches you'll know that it takes a few days to a week for battery life to stabilize. Any watch I've bought, including this one, took about 3 days. Going from having ~50% at the end of the day to having ~70%. Amount of usage matters though. The Good: -Fossil knows how to make a well designed watch. -Accurately tracks activities, even on running on the treadmill. -Having the HR sensor, NFC, and GPS built-in makes for full use of Wear OS. All watches should implement this hardware. -Buttons and crown have more of a click feel compared to Gen 3 -Vibration for notifications feels strong. -Swim proof. Gen 3 was just water resistant. The Bad: -Wear OS is improving a lot. It's a very good watch, but it's no Apple Watch (this is Google's fault). -Still uses the old Qualcomm 2100 Wear processor. -No speaker compared to the last generation. -Some people will never be satisfied with battery life. If you like the leather/silicone hybrid band Fossil offers but don't want to pay the price for it, I bought this one. Looks similar and nearly half the price. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07D76KDSM/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

No idea what all the fuss is about regarding the battery.

First I am going to start with the battery, since that seems to get a lot of complaints and can make some people skeptical. I have no idea what people are doing with their watches, but I have found no issues with the battery. I think I could go 2 days between charges if I needed to. After charging the watch per the startup instructions, and allowing the updates to complete (that part took some time), the only modifications I made to installed apps was removing Nike Run, and Spotify. I don't use always on display, but I do have the heartrate monitor on in the background and have it linked with Google fit. I get all my notifications and installed watchmaker to make a custom watch face. I have not experienced the "dead within hours" issue that others have complained about. This is a great style watch, and a nice upgrade from my original Moto 360 first gen watch I replaced with it.

Looks amazing and works like a charm.

I have to admit even though I wanted a smartwatch, I only seriously considered to get one if it looked good, lasted a day and was not expensive. I got this watch when it was about $199 and have been using it for over two weeks. First the bad: You have to charge it every day. You obviously know what you're getting into when you are buying a smartwatch, but having one more thing to charge daily is not the best thing. It gets me through the day as long as I don't install apps or updates. And the power saver mode is pretty great -about 1% discharge per hour. Those things, I expected. But the mic, in my experience, is horribly useless because the voice response has way too much delay and 'Ok Google' almost always triggers my phone first. Disabling that feature -which I read online- worked wonders for me. The battery life is better, there is far less lag and the watch is way more responsive. I have seen this improvement also when I received the H update. The good, for me firstly, is the design. This watch is gorgeous. I am all for metal straps so maybe this may be a little bit biased but I love how it looks on my wrist. It's not too big or too thick; if the screen is not noticed it has no difference from a regular watch. The buttons are also great and very satisfying to press. The crown is also great but in certain third-party apps, you cannot use it to scroll, which obviously is not the watch's fault. There are a lot of apps on the Play Store, I was especially shocked when I could use the watch as my phone camera's viewfinder/remote shutter and when I used the keyboard to type. I thought it would be too difficult but it's way better than what I expected. Fossil included a lot of watch faces and a lot of them are pretty good. The watch GPS is usually pretty accurate and it can receive notifications from the phone even when Bluetooth is turned off, as long as the watch is connected to a Wi-Fi network. It charges in about 90 minutes which is good enough for me. All in all, Fossil Explorist Gen 4 is a product that I am so happy with and an accessory that goes with everything. I think this watch and Skagen Falster 2 are the best-looking smartwatches in the market that looks less like a mini computer and more like an actual watch.

This watch meets my needs and so far has been has worked perfectly

I've had a couple other Smart watches before and have been somewhat disappointed in them. I do see the benefit of having one but had to really look at what I wanted/needed in a smartwatch. This Fossil tic'd all the right boxes for what I was looking for. Mind you, I've only had it for a little over a week now, but so far it has satisfied my needs and is attractive on my wrist (that's a personal opinion, but I have gotten compliments). I'm not an avid exerciser, but I do try to get in some physical activity on a daily basis. The Google fit paired with the capabilities of this watch provide the adequate metrics for my activities. Someone more dedicated to physical workouts may want more or as I have found, the watch provides all the basics. Setup and sync to my Samsung Note 9 was painless and so far the pairing has worked quite well. I was able to load all the apps I was interested in having and so far they also are working well. I have also found a watch face that suits my needs quite well (Essential Digital) and it provides all the relevant info I want either on the watch face itself or thru hot links on the watch face. I'm not as concerned about multi-day battery life (If you are, look somewhere else), as I am perfectly content with putting it on charger at night. It does last all day (7am to midnight for me) and usually has about a 30% charge left when I put it on the charger. All in all, price, performance, functionality, and reliability have been the perfect mix for what I was looking for.

Stylish Smartwatch

it's important to understand what this device is and what it isn't. it is a smartwatch. very stylish, normal looking smartwatch. it got always on display, so people don't really notice that you wear a smartwatch taking them for a regular smartwatch. it runs latest Wear OS which works amazing with an Android device (iOS comes with a lot of restrictions). single charge lasts for about 16 hours. but quick charge solves a lot of inconveniences. what this device isn't is an activity tracker. I wear it to gym, and it gets pretty accurate workout tracking when you turn on one of the workout modes, but in standby its data is very inaccurate especially calorie burn count (I come from using Fitbit Charge 2 and 3) . Still I would recommend it.

Good watch, but wait for sales

UPDATE: The back came off of the watch, but fossil has absolutely stellar customer service and provided me a gift card for a bit above the full value of the watch. I originally put my review at 3 stars because of how quickly it broke, but I will definitely stick with fossil in the future for watches. Original review below. - okay battery life. always lasts overnight + all day and requires about 1-2 hours to charge. - water+sand resistant: taken jetskiing, to the beach, in the shower with 0 issues so far - heartrate sensor unreliable if band is too loose, but still okay enough for some fitness tracking. it definitely needs improvements, so id only recommend this when below $200.

Very stylish and modern smartwatch

I've been looking for a new smartwatch for a while. My good ol' Sony SW2 was no longer supported by Sony. It was time to retire it. This one does everything I need and then some. It's a good fit for larger hands, and it comes in variety of colors/bands. I bought a black one. Setup was pretty easy - I've downloaded the app and it's pretty much set itself up automatically. A tricky part was a touchscreen 'calibration'. I was expected to slide my finger left, right, up and down. I didn't do it right, and it wouldn't respond to touch. I realized I was interrupted by someone, during the installation. So I did a hard reset and I've tried again. Voila! The watch started downloading updates, which took around 40 minutes, but after that everything worked flawlessly. Incoming calls, text messaging, Facebook, email - all worked. I don't use this watch for 'fitness' so I'm not going to review that, though I see all these functions available. Step counting, heartbeat, calories etc. I like how I can customize the upper and lower buttons on the watch. I've programmed the upper one to show me the weather, and the lower one to show the settings/battery life. The middle button (a crown) is a push switch that turns the watch on. If you turn it up or down, you get access to notifications and to the menus. I also like the 'find the phone' function. When selected, it rings the phone's ringtone. The watch is not too thick (some of these units can be really massive) and it's not very flashy. It can easily pass for a standard mechanical watch. There is a good choice of default watch faces - digital/mechanical/theme/animals, and you can even download more. One cool thing about that is the fact that you can select the watch face to stay on all the time. That doesn't mean 100% brightness. It's actually three levels - 100%, 50% and maybe 10%. The brightness reduces itself in 10 seconds or so, in three stages. The dim stage stays on and it is visible, even in a bright room. One shake of a wrist and it's back to 100%. Cool! Oh, and that option DOESN'T drain the battery at all. I've charged it to 100% at 9:00am and it was still at 68% at 7pm. The charger is pretty cool too. A small magnetic disc which snaps onto the back of the watch. No matter how you put it there - the pins always find the right way. The text/email notifications show full messages, no images. Facebook notifications are just headers - "so-and-so updated his profile picture/commented on your post" etc. Facebook Messenger shows full text messages, no images. The incoming call notification shows a green/red buttons (pickup/hang-up) and the caller ID name. Of course the watch vibrates when all these notifications go thru, but you can turn that off, if you want to. Spare charger is available on Amazon or ebay for around $11. It's a USB-to-watch unit. The watch is supposed to be waterproof. I haven't tried that yet but I will. The manufacturer included a manual with the watch. It's a single piece of paper with just basic instructions in many languages. There are also THICK BOOKS included with all kinds of lawyer talk, also in many languages. What's the point of that?? I was able to buy this watch new, on Amazon, for $129. I see fluctuation in price so.. unless you're ready to buy a used/refurbished watch - wait for a sale. Overall - very nice watch, stylish and modern. Highly recommended.

Stylish and Reliable

I've had this watch for a few weeks now and absolutely love it. I wear this watch everyday and the battery life has never given me any issues. (I take the watch off the charger around 6 AM every morning and the battery lasts me until i re-attach it to the charger around 8 or 9 PM and there is usually still 20-25% battery life left) I don't play playing games on the watch but I am using the GPS, responding to texts and phone calls, and using the fitness tracking ability throughout the day. This watch is '"swim-proof"(or waterproof) so i don't have to worry about damage from water from washing my hands or sweat from when I workout with the watch on which is awesome. I also love that the watch doesn't look like a box sitting on my wrist like a lot of other smart watches do. The watch does take about an hour to set up when you get it out of the box (finish charging, download watch updates and Apps, Connect to phone) but I was honestly expecting the set up to take longer and be more complicated.

Hands down the best looking smart watch to date. (November 2018)

One Con battery life is about 12 to 15 hours. A Pro to the one Con, the charger can do 10 to 100% in less than an hour. I purchased a few extra chargers and have one at work, home and the car (just in case). No it doesn't have a speaker, but it doesn't bother me at all. It does have a mic so google assistant works great with voice (text and other inputs). Wear 2.0 on this watch is fantastic. Tons of faces to chose from. I've been thinking of getting one of the new sport version (with upgraded cpu) for wearing around and save this one for going out and fancy occasions. Great price for this watch.

Does what I want for the entire day.

I needed a nice looking watch and something to give me phone notifications. This is replacing an old fitbit that I don't use for exercise tracking. The battery life is what I expected. It lasts all day and all night. I charge it in the morning for the hour it takes me to get myself and my son ready to go to work/school. I have the face set to "turn on with tilt" so it's not on continuously and I do turn on the "face off until I press the power button" setting when I sleep. I only have certain notifications turned on so that when I'm at work and away from my phone, it alerts me if I get a call, text, or message without alerting me about every facebook post. This is a very nice looking watch, and the size is large enough to be in proportion to an average male without looking like a vambrace. Easily adjustable metal link strap was unexpected. Just use the point of a small paperclip. The watch lacks documentation, but there is a tutorial when you first pair it with your phone that hits the high points.

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