Fossil Women’s Charter Hybrid Smartwatch HR with Always-On Readout Display, Heart Rate, Activity Tracking, Smartphone Notifications, Message Previews

This is ONLY for those who love the traditional watches with a bit of elevated experience.

PROS:
– Amazing Battery Life
– Elite Look & Feel

CONS:
– Bad App – Sync takes time
– Light in the Watch malfunctions most of the time
– Difficult to exit notification – Too many button press 🙁

Overall, an average experience.

Update: 6/6/21: The band has started to come apart. I had ordered the watch with the black band that was labeled “Genuine Leather,” well, it is not 100% genuine leather. It is actually silicone with a very thin layer of leather over it. I am shopping for a new band today because this one makes my wrist so sweaty and uncomfortable that I take the watch off in random areas of my home, and then I can’t find it. So, if you choose, the one with the leather band, just take note that it is actually not 100% leather. The part that will be touching your skin is silicone.

Short Version:
The watch itself is amazing. It is beautiful. It is very customizable. And the materials they’ve used seem to be of high quality. The app has some great features, but it has connectivity issues where it will disconnect from my watch, and the only way to reconnect it is to restart my phone.

Long Version:
The watchband is real leather. The watchcase seems to be quite sturdy. It has a nice weight to it, without it being too heavy. The colors are nice. It is large enough, and the contrast is high enough that it is easy to see, even without my glasses on (my vision isn’t terrible).
I bought this watch because of the looks, as well as the long battery life. What I didn’t realize until I got it home, was that it was also very customizable. The little circles that you can see on my watch can be rearranged, swapped out, or you can leave those spots blank. You can also choose to have the entire background be blank instead of showing the extra information. There are several backgrounds you can choose from, or you can choose a picture that you upload to be your watch background.
The different things you can display on you watch face (inside the little circles):
1. A second timezone of your choosing.
2. The chance that it will rain in your current location today.
3. How many minutes you have been active so far today.
4. How many steps you have taken so far today.
5. The active calories (not including basal calories) that you have burned so far today.
6. The amount of battery life that your watch has.
7. The current weather in your current location.
8. The day number and day of the week that it is.
9. Your current heart rate.
These can all be placed in whichever circle you want them to be placed in. The only annoying thing is, when you are rearranging them, you can’t place, say, the weather on your screen twice. This means that to move the weather information, you first have to take it off and place something else (that you don’t want to keep) in that location so that you can place the weather in the location that you want.
The little buttons on the side of the watch can be changed as well. First, I will cover what they always do.

Top button:
If you push the top button once, it will do the function that you have set it up to do. If you HOLD the top button, it will turn on and off the background. You can make the background blank; just showing what you have set as your background, or have all the little circles visible.
The top button is also how you move backward or up when you are looking through your messages or using the different features.

Center button:
If you press the center button once it will display whichever setting you have chosen for it to do. In my case, I have it set up to display my messages.
If you HOLD the center button, it will bring up the different settings inside the watch.
1. About information
2. Do Not Disturb settings.
3. Dial information on/off.
4. Ring my phone; for if you can’t find your phone.
5. Connect to friend challenges.
6. Music controls.
7. View notifications.
8. Stopwatch.
9. Timer.
10. Wellness (this displays the hours you have slept or the time you have exercised today, your steps, and your calories. If you press the down button when you are in the wellness face, it will check your current heart rate. It will also tell you your resting and max heart rates for the day.)
11. And lastly, you can see the workout features, where you can measure your workout. The different workouts it can measure are running, cycling, hiking, walking, treadmill, elliptical, weights, row machine, “Spin”, and “workout”.
If you HOLD the center button when you are on any screen, it will bring you back to your main watch face.
The center button is also used as an “enter” button. You press once to select whatever the highlighter is on.

Bottom button:
If you press the bottom button once while on the main screen, it will bring up whatever setting you have chosen. Holding it does nothing. The bottom button is also how you move forwards and down within all of the settings.

Customization options for the buttons:
Each button can be set up with a feature that you want quick access to. I have mine set up to show the weather with the top button, my notifications and messages with the middle button, and my wellness dashboard with the bottom button.
You can choose to set up yours with workout mode, stopwatch, music control, timer, commute time, connect challenge, weather, past notifications, and wellness dashboard.

Phew! I tried to be as helpful as possible for that portion because Fossil doesn’t send you any real instructions. They send you a ≈1/2 inch book that basically just tells you not to eat the battery in 50 different languages.

Now for the downside, the app. The app has a lot of great features, but my watch is getting disconnected about once per day. Sometimes I am lucky and it only does it every other day. When this happens, I have to restart my phone to reconnect my watch. I have tried force stopping the app, clearing the cache, turning on and off the Bluetooth, reconnecting within the app, none of that works. I have to restart my phone and then open the app and click connect to reconnect. It isn’t the watch either, because Amazon sent me a replacement and it does it with both the old watch and the new one. I have tried tech support with Amazon and Fossil. Neither company can find a solution. I have a Google Pixel 3, so it isn’t some antique, cheap phone. I even joined a Facebook group for Fossil Hybrid watch owners, and it seems to be an issue that a lot of people have. I didn’t have this problem with my old Fitbit either, so it can’t be my phone.

The 4-star review is due to the syncing issues. If Fossil could fix these issues, this would be a 5-star watch.

Would I recommend this watch to a friend? Yes. As long as they have the patience to handle the syncing issue.

Yet to test watch fully , but right now I see only negatives

Step count is horrondus, miles away from accuracy, my huawei fitness band worth 2.5k is very accurate.

Can you believe power adapter is not included in watch worth 15k , when called customer care (which rarely works) they say I should use only desktop or laptop to charge this watch, NOT mobile phone power adapter.

Strap size mentioned in product information as 22mm , I ordered spare strap of 22mm size , which won’t fit this watch, I checked the original strap size using precision vernier caliper, got the measurements as 20mm .

After severel attempt when I contacted customer care to understand actual size of strap, they have no clue , I was asked to visit nearest service center.

TLDR;
A really solid hybrid smartwatch that covers your phone’s essentials while retaining the most important features of a traditional timepiece: physical watch hands and battery life. Keeps me connected to my phone without feeling like just one more screen.

Design/Build
The body, face hands, strap, and bezel are traditional watch features. They are solid and durable, although will show scratches on painted models. Overall, stands well to wear with careful use, which can be difficult to maintain with activity. I think the sturdiness and weight strikes a good balance between comfortable for fitness but substantial enough for professional settings. This is especially the case if you use multiple bands, which is made simple and easy with the quick release pins. The hands are trimmed nicely with the same color metal as the body. I got the mesh chain. It is surprisingly durable for how flexible it is. The clasps are rigid and feel satisfying to close. There is a hook and two clasps, making it a very secure fit. It can be hard to adjust for different wrists; I had a watch repairman work with it for 10 minutes because it was so tight. But you only have to do it once, so it’s worth for how solid it feels. The quick release pins make traditional watch pins unbearable. Since this is an activity watch, this is of particular relevance because it makes swapping from the metal chain at work to a silicone one for the gym without the need for a tool or to have to fuss for a few minutes. I wish the 12 points on the face were actual numbers, just to further accentuate the watch’s analog roots, but I understand with the display interface why they went with dashes. The sensor/charger is low profile, ensuring the watch doesn’t sit much higher on your wrist than a traditional watch. I think an 18 mm is smaller than i prefer, but i get it. The only thing is for a typical 18 band, this is an abnormally large face. I like the overall size, but it is an odd combination of size.

Materials/Comfort
The metal mesh is surprisingly comfortable. It is very flexible, so it fits close around your wrist without feeling too tight. The charger is really cheap feeling, but I can forgive this because the magnet snaps tightly to the watch. The watch can be placed either up or down on the charger, and the fit is perfect every time because of the magnet. The sensors are small enough to not feel any different from wearing a traditional watch. The buttons are solid and protrude like a traditional watch. They feel solid but mushy. The click is at the end of the press and can get looser over time. It started out pretty tight but was never a satisfying click. I haven’t fully tested waterproofing, but I have accidentally left on while showering a few times. Obviously it withstood that fine, but more importantly for everyday use, the face did not fog up even with warm water.

Smart Features
This watch covers the essentials: notifications and music. I prefer the wrist vibration to my phone sound because it’s silent while guaranteeing I won’t miss it. I do have to set it to strong, especially for morning alarm, but it’s good enough. You can only see a small amount of text, but enough to know if you want to read the whole thing on your phone. You can’t interact with notifications in any meaningful way other than deleting them. This is not an issue for the right customer though, because that’s kind of the point of a hybrid watch. If you’re interested in a hybrid watch, you probably want to stay connected with your phone without straying too far from a reliable timepiece. Music controls are limited, but pretty intuitive: either a button press or hold. I do wish you could seek in either directions, but skip forward is enough for the bare minimum. It works with a variety of apps, I haven’t come across any that can’t be adjusted on my watch. I think the controls are poorly thought out and subject to change, which can be extremely frustrating for a timepiece. I think while it makes sense that volume controls are a single press, they are less useful that seek and pause, particularly because phones and many headphones come with physical volume controls. If I’m reaching for my watch with regards to music, it’s usually to quickly skip or pause tracks, but the long press gets in the way of making it an easy operation. Call controls are limited to accept/reject, which is fine since the face displays caller id. Weather is decent, and you can scroll for some more details than just temperature. Ring phone is a super handy feature when I’m running late for something and I don’t have time to look for my phone. The UI is somewhat difficult to navigate at first, but it makes good sense once you’re used to the circle. The upper button goes counterclockwise and the bottom clockwise (as opposed to left/right/up/down). Everything is only a few presses away, which makes navigation not too bad. The timer is simple to use but only works in no less than 1 minute increments. You can hold to go up 10 minutes quickly with a long press, but I use my watch for short timers, especially increments of 30 seconds while cooking because of its convenience. Stopwatch works like a traditional watch.

Activity Tracking
The sensors are not on par with pure fitness trackers/watches above $250. The step counter is serviceable, although does occasionally overcount. The heart rate sensor was consistently high compared to counting with a timer. There’s a good variety of workouts, although if you’re doing that much exercise, you probably value more accurate readings (like a fitbit/apple watch). The wellness dashboard provides a solid snippet of your day, although it should display when you click on wellness automatically. The metal body is surprisingly light, meaning it’s still good for light exercise, especially with a silicone band. The sensor is small enough that it doesn’t bother me while in motion. Sleep tracking is the most accurate, although this drains a lot of battery.

Display/Battery
The e-ink is exactly what this kind of device needs. I want to be able to interact with my phone for things that don’t need a screen on something that doesn’t feel like a screen. It is surprisingly large. Its compromises compared to digital screens are somewhat mitigated by the point of this product. If you know you need more functionality, you’re not looking at this watch. It displays enough to know if you need to actually whip out your phone, but is limited enough to not just be another distraction. One key advantage besides not feeling like a screen is that always on doesn’t drain battery. It feels like a traditional phone because I never have to turn the screen “off” and I only have to charge almost every two weeks. I would definitely get a full two weeks without sleep tracking. Since e-ink is based on pixel states instead of pixel changing, it feels more like a physical display than digital ones. I don’t know if there’s a standby mode, but battery under low activity drains very slowly. I usually wear mine 24/7 weekdays and only for sleep tracking and exercise on weekends, and it only drains during sleep on weekends.

App/Customization
The app is where this product loses a star. It’s not the worst, but it is constantly changing. I hate that updates are directly below your watch selector, especially since most of it is obnoxiously disguised ads. I haven’t needed a single thing that is in that menu. The wellness dashboard below is significantly more valuable information and should be directly below the watch. On the positive side, the ability to change the face to pretty much any picture without using a digital interface is really nice. It’s the only way to get infinite physical faces. However, the dial customization is a very poor experience. The variety of options is nice, and being able to quickly hide them with the physical buttons is nice. But moving them around can be really finicky. It should have snapping so that you can line things up. I’ve also found that where I place it on the app isn’t always exactly where it ends up on my watch display. I do like that you can change the text to black or white easily. The limited fonts is disappointing. Saving and changing your face is really simple. My biggest complaint about the app is long-term reliability and constant changes. I do not like how fossil keeps changing it, as well as what that means for the device’s longevity. A traditional timepiece is valuable in part because it should last you forever (minus the batteries). I will never have this confidence with the app because what if my phone or watch becomes incompatible? It won’t matter for the first few years, but after some time (which is nothing compared to the lifespan of a traditional watch), it would be really upsetting to one day just not be able to use a perfectly functioning watch.

Overall Thoughts
Fossil’s Hybrid HR is the best hybrid watch for limited but essential phone connectivity and basic activity tracking. It’s not as accurate as a fitness tracker and it’s not as long lasting as a traditional timepiece, but it validates its position in the middle. If you don’t need super accurate fitness tracking, it’s enough for basic monitoring. If you don’t need to operate complex functions on your phone, it’s enough for basic phone interaction. The battery is good, though definitely closer to traditional smart watch than a traditional one. It is analog in all the right places. My only concern other than the app is that Fossil will stay committed to this product to truly make it a hybrid device. If they will allow it to keep basic functionality for at least a decade, then the analog features were worth it. If not, then Fossil will have failed a really solid product that certainly has the potential for the timelessness of a classic watch.