▷Fossil Gen 5 Carlyle HR review: a true flagship for Wear OS 🥇

wear OS, the smartwatch operating system of Google, has been struggling for years to achieve the same relevance as its 'big brother'. If indeed Android is the most popular operating system for smartphones, in the field of wearables, between smart bands and watches with proprietary operating systems of all sorts, Wear OS turns out to be just one of the many options. In addition to software, hardware platforms have also influenced this positioning. Review the new one Fossil Gen 5 Carlyle HR, equipped with this operating system, it was therefore a breath of fresh air, because, perhaps for the first time, I have in my hands a device capable of hitting many of the points necessary to make the most of the Google platform and make it competitive. But let's start from the beginning.

Fossil Gen 5 Carlyle HR recensione

Let's analyze together the features, strengths and weaknesses of this device, point by point.

Appearance and specifications

From an aesthetic point of view alone, the new Carlyle HR is very elegant and clean: with a screen AMOLED 328ppi da 1.28" flush with the case 44 mm, it is a very nice device to look at and use on a daily basis. It is also compatible with third-party straps from 22 mm, it is possible to really adapt it to every style. The only possible problem concerns the aforementioned size of the case, which could be excessive for those with a particularly small wrist.

The full-screen design also has a flaw: it is perpetually exposed to the 'dangers' of the outside world, which in my model has led, also due to my 'mistreatment', to accumulate some small scratches. The screen then fills up quite easily with fingerprints, which will lead you to clean it quite often. Neither the scratches that the fingerprints, however, affect daily use, thanks also to the good brightness of the screen, capable of making the interface always clear and pleasant (except perhaps in direct sunlight).

In addition to the touchscreen of the screen, on the right side we find three buttons: the central one, which acts as the 'Home' button, can also be used as a wheel to scroll through the various menus. The smaller keys, on the other hand, are freely programmable, depending on your needs. For example, I set the opening of the 'Timer' app for the lower button (very useful for cooking), while for the upper one I set the opening of Google Pay, to pay on the fly in shops equipped with POS.

But now let's talk a little about the hardware specifications: this watch, in fact, is equipped with the best of the best available for Wear OS, or the processor of Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100, specifically designed to optimize performance and battery life together. Alongside this SoC are ben 1GB of RAM (enough for this category of device) e 8GB of storage, to install applications from Play Store. We also find support at WiFi e Bluetooth 4.2 with low energy consumption for connection with your telephone, the GPS for browsing through Google Maps andNFC to make contactless payments with Google Pay.

We also obviously have a whole range of sensors for monitoring your own health and your own outdoor sporty, from heart rate sensor, following with accelerometer, altimeter, ambient light sensor up to gyroscope. This smartwatch is also equipped with a microphone, can be used to interact with the voice assistant Google Assistant and to make calls directly from the smartwatch thanks to thebuilt-in speaker.

In short, a complete and all-round device, but with two major absentees, present on other high-end devices: on the sensor side, there is no possibility of monitor sleep and to check for irregularities in one's heartbeat, all things possible right now on Apple Watch and on Samsung smartwatches. On the connectivity side, however, it is not possible to have this watch with the integrated LTE network, making it impossible to use it without a mobile phone close at hand and connected. Two aspects which, however, are not so relevant for most people, and which therefore do not affect too much on the judgment regarding this device.

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Daily use

But now let's talk about what it's like to actually use this watch in our daily life. After connecting the device to our mobile phone, whether Android or iOS, through the dedicated app, we can set the appearance of our dial from the latter, the tabs (basically widgets) by scrolling to the right and the type of notifications that we would like to receive.

All operations that we can also do directly from the watch, with the opportunity, depending on the type of use that suits us, to decide the energy profile of the device. Each predicts a different trade-off between the amount of features enabled and battery life: the daily, with no limitations in terms of features, it still allows you to easily reach the end of the day, but in practice it will require you to charge the device every night. The other extreme is the 'Only now', capable of making the clock last even weeks by showing only the time. In between, there is'Extended ', which disables many things to bring autonomy to a few days, but with a not exactly intuitive criterion for choosing which functions to keep and which not.

Personally, if you don't know how to orient yourself, my advice is to fully use your Fossil, recharging it every day, since sleeping in it is neither very comfortable nor particularly useful. If, on the other hand, you know a bit how to get around, you have a 'Custom' profile where you can choose what you want to keep on and what not.

The interface is very intuitive and familiar if you have already used a Wear OS device (but even if this were not the case): from the Home, as a swipe to the right, you go to the Google Assistant, similar to the Google Feed screen found on many phones. Going to the left, however, we will find, one by one, the various tabs with customizable widgets for the various applications (Timer, Google Fit, Calendar, etc etc ...). Towards the other we will have the notifications, while towards the bottom we will find the Quick Settings, with including the shortcuts for the battery, the audio controls and Google Pay.

Also the interaction with the message notifications, both thanks to the quick replies and with the possibility of dictate the reply text makes it possible to take out the mobile phone very infrequently. Contributing to this latter aspect is the possibility of view maps and directions directly from the dial that the interface of playback control, which allows, regardless of the presence or absence of the controls integrated in your headphones, to stop playback or navigate between tracks while listening to music or a podcast.

Even for sports use the device performed very well, measuring mine beat cardiac during the day and allowing me to precisely monitor my training sessions. The integration with Google Fit allows you to choose from an infinite number of activities, while, for running specifically, it is still possible to download apps from the Play Store such as Runtastic o Nike Training ahead Club.

Fossil Gen 5 Carlyle HR review: buy it or not?

It has now been several weeks since I started testing the new Fossil Gen 5 Carlyle HR to write a review, and my experience has been, overall, very satisfying, both for the features listed above and for the integration between high-level hardware and software.

Yet, as regards recommending this smartwatch to other people, I want to get my hands on, given the certainly not low list price: we are talking about 299 €, in line with other high-end wearable products. A price in my opinion highly justified by all the features included in this smartwatch, but which make it unsuitable for those who are looking only for a wearable for sport and time.

This device is also probably not suitable for those who turn up their noses at the idea of recharging another device in addition to the mobile phone every day. Of course, there is the possibility, through the extended mode, to make the battery last a few days, but, given the sacrificed features, at this point it might be worth simply moving towards a Huawei GT 2, with less functionality, but also with a lower list price and an autonomy that can, on paper, even reach two weeks

For everyone else, however, I can only highly recommend the new one Fossil Gen 5 Carlyle HR (and also Julianna HR, the 'female' version distinguishable only aesthetically), with which I am sure you will find yourself very comfortable whatever the use you have in mind.