Sara Jenkins
I was considering the Pixel Watch 2 as my first smartwatch, but the end of year deals on this Fossil Gen6 Wellness made trying out WearOS much more reasonable from a price perspective. One of my associates has the Pixel Watch 2 and one has the Skagen Falster Gen6 (same hardware as my Fossil Gen6 Wellness), so I have been able to make some comparisons.I love this watch. It looks great, has very cool looking watch faces (without having to install 3rd party ones), and gets me through a full day of use and charges quickly at the end of the day. I put it on the charger while I'm winding down for the evening and it gets back up to 100% quickly. I don't wear it to sleep but I don't leave it on the charger while I am sleeping because I don't like to leave fully charged devices plugged in to their chargers for hours. In the morning I let it charge back to 100% while I am showering, and then I am good to go for the day. This is also exactly how I charge my Pixel 6a phone, so it works out well.Although I don't use the watch for sleep tracking I do use the step counter every day, and I occasionally look at my heart rate (usually after running to catch the subway) and blood oxygen level (just for fun). It closely matches the readings I get with my pulse oximeter, so I must be more compatible with this watch's sensors than the people who don't have the same good experience as I do. Other frequently used features are Google Pay (it's great not having to take out my wallet or phone to use my credit card), the Weather app, and yes, I prefer Alexa over Google Assistant and I ask Alexa questions throughout the day. I like pressing to activate Alexa instead of using her wake word, so I don't trigger anyone else's Echo or other Alexa-enabled devices. Google Assistant is also installed on this watch if I decide to switch at any time. I very much like seeing my day's schedule in the Agenda app that pulls from my Google Calendar, and seeing all of the alerts that I would usually have to pull my phone out to read is really useful, and I have to pull my phone out of my pocket much less frequently thanks to this feature. When I do see an alert that I have a text or email that needs a response I do use my phone to reply because the tiny keyboard on the watch strains my old eyes too much.Setup was as time consuming as it would be with a new phone. It came out of the box with WearOS 3, and after pairing it with the Fossil app on my phone it upgraded twice. Once to WearOS 3.5, and then once more for a December update that I understand fixed some problems with WearOS 3.5. I consider myself very fortunate to have purchased this watch after the above updates were made available, as it let me avoid all of the bugs that preceded them. My associate's Pixel Watch 2 also needed time-consuming updates (for WearOS 4), and the only difference in setup between this Gen6 Wellness and the Skagen Gen6 is that the Skagen came out of the box with WearOS 2.x and required a much lengthier update path to WearOS 3.0, then WearOS 3.5, and then the December update. And that Skagen Falster Gen6 is even more stylish than my Fossil so I think it was worth the extra setup effort for the person wearing that one,Comparing to the Pixel Watch 2, I don't see any apparent benefit of its WearOS 4 over my Fossil's WearOS 3.5 yet. The battery life is supposed to be better on the Pixel Watch 2, but in practice it is very close to my Fossil's. That may be because the Pixel Watch 2 user has WhatsApp on their watch and that might be sucking battery.I am very happy that I chose the Fossil Gen 6 over the Pixel Watch 2. There are rumors that Fossil is exiting the WearOS smartwatch business. If that is true then I will get good use from this Fossil watch for a couple of years and then upgrade to a Pixel Watch 3 or 4, or whatever the latest Google offering is at that time. If Fossil stays in the game and makes some next gen WearOS devices, then I will stick with Fossil when it comes time to upgrade.

Cameron Adams
I really like this watch, much better fit for men then pixel watch and much better battery life as well. It is not however much of an upgrade for gen 5 tbh. Battery life is slightly better, addition of Wear OS3 which is nicer but not really any better. Haptics still stink, speaker is pretty good. I don't like the way notification come in especially when you get a couple of them in a row. The screen goes opaque with the time showing and you have to clear the message to get to your stock dial. This one is a little hard to explain but pixel watch / fitbit watches do a better job here. There is few options to adjust how you interact with messages but never landed on anything to my liking. Pixel watch though a less powerful processors is much smoother and syncing with the phone is much better. Fossil would routinely time out, regularly I had to cycle Bluetooth to get it working again. As far as fitness it has the basics but accuracy is meh at best. Ultimately if you want directionally accurate basic health features and primarily want a smart watch that looks great this is a good option.Update:. Spent more time with pixel watch, they last similar amount of time on battery. Speaker on the fossil is much better then pixel watch.

Kelly Mcclain
I bought this as a Christmas gift for my wife after her Fitbit turned out to be a complete disappointment. She ended up getting it a few days early because I am horrible with surprises and her Fitbit finally stopped working. Initially, she loved it. Once she discovered the app and all of the different watch faces available, she was super excited. It fit comfortably with the factory band and she liked the size of it.I received a lot of texts the first day with it about how much she liked it. She was a little concerned that she couldn't make it through a whole day on a complete charge though. She would put it on the charger before bed, put it on as she walked out the door to work and by the time she got home from work, 9-10 hours later, it was dead. Wouldn't even last 12 hours. That was concerning.Now, after almost 3 weeks, it will only last 5 or 6 hours and is dead. My wife is not a very tech savvy person, I turned off a lot of the features that she wouldn't use or didn't need. Still cannot make it through an 8 hour work day. And within the last 2 days, it has started to freeze up and stop working. It got sent back today. Not even a month old and it has these kinds of issues. She loved the features and the watch, but if it won't last all day what is the point of wearing it?Not sure how the sleep tracking works since it had to stay on the charger at night and could not be worn.

Dr. Elizabeth Black
My wife and I both work in tech and we don't always treat ourselves to the latest/greatest, but we've tried all the smartwatches and always seem to have the best experience with Fossil. My Gen5 has been running strong for 2 years now and it's my everyday wear.The gen6 has been problem free since my wife got it before Christmas. Setup was easy and we got it mates up to her Android phone without issue. Battery life is great and it charges so quickly she can wear it all day and night and charge while she's in the shower.Definitely a solid choice with functionality, comfort, and style.

James Adkins
Before buying this watch I looked at a lot of reviews and I was prepared for the battery life, interface, etc. But problems appeared where I did not expect them at all - and this is charging! Since the watch discharges quite quickly, it needs to be charged daily. But to start the charging process you need to use Magic! Twist the cable in different positions so that the charging process begins. I've never had a problem with a charger on any device in my entire life! It's very disappointing and spoils the experience of using this watch. And this is all after a month of waiting!