The new smart watch from Fossil, the Fossil Q Wander may just be stylish and functional enough to prove that the wearable technology market isn’t only for the electronic companies.
Fossil Q Wander is the latest addition to the watchmaker’s line up, and joins a growing number of fashion watch companies, including Guess with its Connect timepieces, taking on the mobile phone giants.
The Fossil Q Wander includes a fitness tracker and even the trendy wireless charging. The watch itself comes in at £279, compared to £249 for the Guess Connect 41mm size and £259 for the 45mm size. Guess also has a Classic line of smartwatches for £229 within the AW16 range. The Guess has the features of most smartwatches such as music control, bluetooth and notifications. As the Guess is a hybrid fashion watch, it also has a quartz movement and has watches will crystals on the bezel in its collection.
Fossil Q offers connectivity with both Android and Apple’s IOS, something the likes of Huawei have struggled with in the past.
Fossil Q also has the Founder and Marshal which are slight variants of the Wander, the main difference being the Founder is meant to look more traditional and the Marshal is meant to look more futuristic, the Wander is in the middle. The Marshal starts at £279 and the Founder starts at £259.
Not only has Fossil got the Wander, which can be considered a direct competitor to the Apple Watch, Huawei or Samsung Gear, it also has a range of hybrid smart watches that look like traditional timepieces, as well as fitness trackers similar to Fitbit.
The ‘horological smart watch’ presented by Fossil is the Fossil Q Grant, a hybrid watch which can be seen as a competitor to Frederique Constant or Alpina and their takes on maintaining heritage within this technology.
Both Alpina and Frederique Constant have timepieces selling for around £1,000, compared to Fossil’s £165 price tag, but Fossil will target a younger demographic.
For the most part, the people fascinated by smart watches aren’t collectors or rich impulse buyers but the younger generation who want to feel ahead of the curb. It’s therefore more likely for them to fork out for affordable American craftsmanship than the Swiss.
Fossil has gone all out with wearables, having also taken on fitness tracker giant Fitbit in the market of slim, simple trackers.
The newest of this from Fossil is the Q Dreamer, an £85 stylish bracelet which keeps note of your health and gives you notifications from your phone with a buzz and a light. It even seems that in many ways the Q Dreamer outshines the new Fitbit Alta. It looks nicer, it’s cheaper and it has a 7 day estimated battery instead of 5 days.
The Fossil Q Wander hits the market on the 29th August and many people are excited to see fashion brands finally tackle the tech giants.
