Fossil smartwatches will soon have a major advantage over the Galaxy Watch 4
Everyone has their own favorite voice assistant, and if you own a Fossil Gen 6 or buy any of the brand’s upcoming Gen 6 smartwatches such as the Skagen Falster Gen 6 or Razer x Fossil Gen 6, then you’ll soon have some say in which voice assistant gets activated on your wrist.
That’s because Fossil has confirmed that Amazon Alexa will be coming to all of its Gen 6 devices, saying in a statement to 9to5Google that “Alexa will be launching in the first half of this year on our Gen 6 devices, with opportunity to roll out on future devices. We’ll have more information closer to launch!”
So while the statement doesn’t round down the launch timing too much – with Alexa potentially arriving anytime between now and the end of June – it does confirm that the feature is on the way.
The statement also suggests that Alexa might be a feature of subsequent Fossil watches – so Gen 7 and beyond. However, from the wording, it sounds like it probably won’t come to older models, owners of which will therefore just have Google Assistant, which is a standard feature of Wear OS.
Whenever Alexa does arrive on the Fossil Gen 6 and its siblings, it’s likely to be the first of two big software updates this year, as Wear OS 3 is also known to be coming to these wearables, though recent news on that front suggests it won’t arrive until mid to late 2022.
With the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 it’s Bixby or nothing (Image credit: Future)
Analysis: more choice and better options than Samsung offers
If you bought a Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 or Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Classic then you won’t have to wait for Wear OS 3, as they shipped with it – albeit with a Samsung skin on top. However, not only do these wearables not have Alexa, they also don’t even offer Google Assistant – which is a standard feature of Wear OS elsewhere.
What they do have, is Bixby – Samsung’s own voice assistant and one which we’d wager hardly anyone uses by choice, with Google Assistant, Alexa, and Siri all arguably being more polished options.
So if Fossil can offer the choice of two high-quality voice assistants on its wearables while Samsung only gives owners one lower quality one, then that could be a big win for Fossil, and lessen the sting of waiting so long for Wear OS 3.
Of course, Samsung could even the playing field a little. While there’s no sign of it offering Alexa on its wearables, Google Assistant is a possibility, and was even reportedly announced at one stage, but if and when it will actually land on them is very unclear.
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