
Google is buying Fossil’s smartwatch tech for $40M - toufiqbarhamov
https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/17/google-is-buying-fossils-smartwatch-tech-for-40-million/
======
stcredzero
UX discussion here. Is there any UX/design/functional reason to have a round
watch face on a smartwatch? Analog watches were round to fit the display
technology available at the time, the watch dial, which is inherently round.
RGB pixel displays are naturally rectangular.

My wife thinks that even the smallest latest Apple Watch is way too large for
a watch. I wonder if there's some matter of comfort in a relatively flat
backed round form factor for a watch? A relatively thick rectangle with a
rounder back is going to have a center of mass that is further away from the
wrist. It comprises a very small cantilever, which is still quite large on the
scales of the traditional watch. (By something like a factor of 3 or so.) The
slightly taller rectangular shape will also tend to funnel the motion such a
cantilever experiences in an arc parallel to the forearm. None of this was at
all an issue for most traditional watches, simply because they were much
flatter.

Something has always bothered me about Apple Watches when trying them out in
the store, and I think it's this. They're not bulky, but there's something
about them which seems to keep them from disappearing from my awareness. Even
my dad's old Rolex, which isn't huge, but isn't small for a watch, seems to
sit on my wrist more comfortably. Even the Tag Heuer, which I think is a bit
too big, seems to sit more comfortably on my wrist. Even the big old school
watches just didn't have this stick-out-y character.

~~~
com2kid
> UX discussion here. Is there any UX/design/functional reason to have a round
> watch face on a smartwatch? Analog watches were round to fit the display
> technology available at the time, the watch dial, which is inherently round.
> RGB pixel displays are naturally rectangular.

Ex-Lead UI developer from the ex-Microsoft Band here.

UX wise, rectangular and square form factors make a lot more sense for the
types of media consumption smartwatches are used for. Every time I see a text
message clipped on the sides with only 3 lines showing on a huge circular
display, I cry a little inside.

Apple went with square-ish for a lot of good reasons.

You can do some cool, innovative, and impressive looking things with circular
form factors of course, especially when it comes to graphical displays of
data. But humans are very bad at judging magnitudes in pie shape forms, and at
the end of the day, a lot of information is textual. This limits you.

> My wife thinks that even the smallest latest Apple Watch is way too large
> for a watch.

Honestly the Microsoft Band being worn on the underside of the wrist was
brilliant (I may be biased). It is much easier to hold up in a comfortable
reading position, and the dual body design meant the mass was split across the
top and bottoms of the wrist.

The problem of course was fitting all those electronics in a much narrower
form factor. The entire device ended up being too wide for some people's
wrists. At the end of the day, all those electronics and sensors, and of
course the display, had to go somewhere.

In regards to the article, I'm guessing Google is buying a team for the
factory contracts, supply chains, and perhaps the ME/EE talent. Having all of
that come in one big package is nice, building up those supplier relationships
especially can take years of painful miscommunication.

~~~
m0zg
>> media consumption smartwatches are used for

Huh? Smartwatches aren't used for "media consumption". I primarily use my
Series 4 Apple watch as a watch and heart/activity monitoring device.

I do think the rectangular form factor is better in a watch, but this comment
may reveal why Apple is crushing everybody else: they understood the user and
sold that user a _watch_ rather than a "media consumption" device.

>> Microsoft Band being worn on the underside of the wrist was brilliant

Another misunderstanding of what watches are about. They're on the upper side
of one's wrist because they're also a fashion accessory. That's how you get to
charge $450 per unit sold.

~~~
brlewis
> this comment may reveal why Apple is crushing everybody else: they
> understood the user and sold that user a _watch_ rather than a "media
> consumption" device.

On the flip side, if Apple _isn 't_ crushing everybody else, it's because they
misunderstood typical users and thought they wanted a tiny phone on the wrist,
rather than a watch.

Disclosure: Fitbit employee, but I don't speak for Fitbit. My opinion that
Apple isn't crushing everybody else isn't based on any inside info, but on the
article below that reported that less than half of Holiday 2017 Apple Watch
sales were the then-current model. Most of their sales were discounted old
inventory, so usually they _didn 't_ get to charge $450 per unit sold.

[https://investorplace.com/2018/02/holiday-apple-watch-
sales-...](https://investorplace.com/2018/02/holiday-apple-watch-sales-
record/)

~~~
malshe
Where did you see this statistic in the article?: "the article below that
reported that less than half of Holiday 2017 Apple Watch sales were the then-
current model."

The only place where they do any such split is the graph and it shows total
number of units sold in 2015-2017.

~~~
brlewis
"Canalys says Apple Watch sales for the holiday quarter alone were 8 million,
and nearly half of those were the new Apple Watch Series 3 — which we’ve
already pegged as a game-changer."

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UncleChis
Didn't Fossil buy Misfit for like $200M to start its smartwatch department?

~~~
vatueil
Close: $260 million. Though it appears Fossil is only selling part of its
portfolio (mostly IP plus some R&D) and they very much plan to continue
producing smartwatches.

Curiously, it sounds like Misfit's involved in whatever it was that Google's
interested in:

[https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/google-
buys-40-milli...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/google-
buys-40-million-worth-of-smartwatch-tech-from-fossil-group/)

> _According to a [report]([https://www.wareable.com/fossil/google-fossil-
> wear-os-smartw...](https://www.wareable.com/fossil/google-fossil-wear-os-
> smartwatch-big-deal-6922)) from Wareable, McKelvey stated the deal will
> bring about a "new product innovation that's not yet hit the market." This
> is reportedly based on technology that Fossil acquired from wearable company
> Misfit when it [bought the startup for $260
> million]([https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/11/fossil-acquires-
> misf...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/11/fossil-acquires-misfit-to-
> bring-connectivity-to-more-fashionable-accessories/)) back in 2015._

In the Wareable article, Google Wear VP Stacey Burr says they want to bring
this unnamed technology to the wider Wear OS ecosystem.

------
SomeHacker44
I love my Fossil Q because it does one thing many other smart watches just
don't: tells the time, all the time, no motion required, in a high contrast
fashion.

All I really want out of a watch is that, plus long battery life (weeks at
least, months preferably), self-charging, self-time setting, and, if I am
lucky, some sort of "hey look at your phone" alert.

I get most of these with the Fossil Q. Others with my Citizens and Seiko non-
smart watches, one of which has an e-ink display. Nothing has them all. Oh
well.

I wonder if Google will make a Fossil Q which has it all. I do not need a
display, health monitoring, etc.

~~~
NoPicklez
Sounds like you are looking or the hybrid smartwatches.

Garmin do a very good job of displaying the time in high contrast, but I'm not
sure if they give you the option of being able to have the display on all the
time.

~~~
sand500
Yep, most of their watches have the display on all the time. The term to look
for is "transflective memory-in-pixel" in specs.

This was the main reason I loved my pebble watches as iirc all android wear
watches couldn't do this.

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zubiaur
Patents? If I remember correctly, Fossil launched one of the first smart
watches, running Palm OS.

~~~
opencl
They also made some SPOT watches back then (Microsoft tech that pushed things
like weather/news/emails/stocks/etc. to watches over FM radio).

I had one of the PalmOS watches. Very cool but battery life and inputting text
were horrendous. I imagine Palm got most of the patents around that but maybe
Fossil got some too.

~~~
amysox
Yes, I had a Fossil Abacus WristPDA (PalmOS 4.0) also at one point. I agree
with both your criticisms, especially battery life; that thing drank juice
from the battery like an eight-armed alcoholic, and you had to use its special
USB cable with added power supply to recharge it nightly.

Jamie Zawinski once suggested that I turn PalmOS DaliClock into a "watch face"
app, but, once I researched how those worked, I realized it would kill the
battery _even faster,_ and wouldn't even _work_ right as watch face apps only
got periodic CPU, about once a minute to update their display.

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jordache
damn FOSL really need the cash huh? $40M and they said yes!?

~~~
ce4
probably yes. The Apple watch has eaten into their market - the lower priced
fashion watches. Not sure why they'd get rid of their smart watch division.

Maybe because only one watch can have wrist time at a time (maybe except for
Buzz Aldrin) and Apple catches a big portion of the market by default already
(almost all of the iPhone userbase).

[https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/smartwatches-fossil-
apple-...](https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/smartwatches-fossil-apple-
update-2017)

~~~
jethro_tell
isn't fossil owned by swatch? They have a generally successful actual watch
business, and they probably just decided it's time to stop losing money on
this since it's not actually a core business.

~~~
notatoad
Pretty sure fossil is independently owned.

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matmo
Is anyone satisfied with their Fossil watch? I have a Fossil Q Explorist and
it's so slow and laggy that I almost wonder if I got a lemon. It takes like 3
taps to click or swipe before anything registers. I'm pretty sure my original
Moto 360 is faster. I only wear it because it looks decent and occasionally
works. I really wanted to like it, but my experience has just been ... bad.

~~~
arthurcolle
Maybe try to RMA the device? Sounds like it might have just not gone through
very good quality assurance.

Totally unrelated but I have a fenix 5x (Garmin) and it is just amazing. Sure,
the display quality leaves a little to be desired and it was really pricey,
but the information density is just off the charts.

------
PM_ME_YOUR_CAT
So...more WearOS Fossils or more Fossil-y WearOS?

~~~
johneth
Given Google's attention span, I'd bet on the former.

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davidwitt415
Hopefully it's to get more control over the hardware, especially the chipset.
Qualcomm is dragging down WearOS with their glacial pace and underwhelming
commitment to the platform.

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mkbkn
Case study: Sailfish Watch
[https://blog.jolla.com/watch/](https://blog.jolla.com/watch/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailfish_smartwatch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailfish_smartwatch)

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glbrew
Fossil out-teched Google?

~~~
dajohnson89
Purchase the competition and extinguish it. There's a term for this -- acquire
and stifle? Something like that.

~~~
harlanlewis
Embrace, extend, extinguish
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish)

~~~
itwy
He's kidding.

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icodemuch
Hopefully this means that my Fossil Q Wander is going to be on the cutting
edge of Google's software updates now. Big fan of this watch by the way, only
complaint is that it doesn't led itself to workouts as well as some other
watches.

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gaara87
I feel real good about my Fossil Sport :)

Impressive to see Google's aggressive push into the hardware market. Here's to
hoping that a Pixel watch is good enough to set a bench mark like what the
Nexus/Pixel phones have done.

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solarkraft
There's a good chance they'll run it into the ground.

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hema_n
Try for fitbit

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Hippocrates
40MM doesn’t sound like a huge deal for Google but I still cannot fathom why
they would purchase this. I’d rather have a pimple on my forehead than a
fossil smartwatch on my wrist.

An appropriate name for Google’s smartwatch line would be “caprolite”, which
means fossized excrement.

