Fossil is abandoning smartwatches -Gudstory

Fossil Group has decided to discontinue smartwatches.

The company announced this afternoon that it will be leaving the smartwatch business and instead redirect resources to its less-smart accessories. The company has been one of the most prolific makers of Wear OS smartwatches over the past few years, and its absence will leave a huge gap in the market.

“As the smartwatch landscape has evolved significantly over the past few years, we have made a strategic decision to exit the smartwatch business,” explains Fossil spokeswoman Amanda Castelli. the verge, “Fossil Group is redirecting resources to support our core strengths and the core areas of our business that offer strong growth opportunities for us: exciting traditional watches, jewelry and leather under our own and licensed brand names. Designing and distributing goods. ,

This means the Gen 6, which first launches in 2021, will be the last Fossil smartwatch. Castelli says the company will continue to update existing Wear OS watches “for the next few years.”

If you’ve been paying attention to Fossil for the past few months, this shouldn’t be a huge shock. Some Reddit users were reporting to Fossil’s retail employees that Fossil was going out of business, while others on the platform claimed “inside” knowledge that the company was waiting for a new chipset. The company regularly introduced smartwatches during Wear OS’s most difficult years and was often a permanent fixture at CES. However, the company was notably absent from the show earlier this month. Additionally, Fossil was expected to announce news of a new Gen 7 featuring the Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 Plus platform in 2023 – however, that was nothing but cricket throughout the year. Well, now we know why.