If you're wearing a Fossil smartwatch or one from the myriad fashion brands that have licensed rights out to the company, you may have been disappointed at how slowly software advancement has gone. Samsung and, of late, Google have hogged the best Android smartwatches for a lengthy span and when it finally came to Fossil's Gen 6 watches, it came with plenty of DIY trudging and without Google Fit and Google Assistant. There may be reasons for the tedium, but it's left some customers displeased. Now at CES 2023, Fossil is launching yet another smartwatch with its Gen 6 design — its full name is actually the Fossil Gen 6 Hybrid Wellness Edition. This time, though, it will be running a software race of its own making.

This is because it doesn't run on Wear OS and doesn't have a conventional smartwatch display — it's a backlit E Ink screen with an information-dense home watchface telling the time, date, current weather, battery level, heart rate, and various meters for fitness vectors including steps, calories, sleep health, and SpO₂. That's a lot for a 1.1" 170p display.

And as we're talking about a hybrid design, there are also physical arms and interval markers surrounding the display for analog timekeeping. It's not the first hybrid Fossil's done (see the Fossil Hybrid HR from 2020), but this is the most advanced design when it comes to health-focused hardware.

Speaking of hardware, there's one home button and two configurable side buttons, a microphone for calls and Alexa access, a haptic motor, requisite trackers for heart rate and SpO₂, and radios for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0. No SoC is specified. The battery's advertised to last for two weeks while 60 minutes on the magnetic charging cradle should bring it up to 80%. The stainless steel case spans 44mm in diameter and fits with standard 20mm straps. Water resistance is rated at 3 ATM.

The Fossil Gen 6 Hybrid Wellness Edition tethers to your phone via its Wellness app — introduced with the Fossil Gen 6 Wellness Edition (say all of this five times fast) — and includes rich data readouts from the biometric sensors plus expanded analysis including VO₂ Max and heart rate zones. The watch can also pick up on workouts automatically based on the motion it can detect and tie it back to your phone's GPS data if you're the type to blaze extraordinary or silly paths.

The Gen 6 Hybrid Wellness will come in three styles (black case with black band, silver case with navy blue band, and a bronze-ish gold with pale pink band) and eight bands (red, maroon, gray, white, and purple plus the three included colors). You can buy the watch for $229 and a strap for $30 from Fossil starting January 5.