Day: 5 February 2020

On buying the Fossil hybrid HR watch

fossil hybrid HR smartwatch face

During the seasonal period “I bought” a Fossil hybrid HR smartwatch. It was meant to replace my pebble smartwatch but it never came. I made the decision to give it a try after trying it on in the Fossil store in Manchester.

I found it online also found a discount code from Fossil for first time purchases. Ordered it and expected to come back home after xmas to a little present from myself. The Fossil invoice said it takes 4-5 business days

However after lots of chasing weeks after, I finally got a reply saying they had cancelled the order (without telling me) because they were completely out of stock for that model. It was frustrating  but they finally offered me a discount when it comes back into stock. However the discount was for less than my original discount.

I think I would be more annoyed if I hadn’t read this updated review of the smartwatch. I realised one feature the Fossil didn’t have was the ability to reply to messages or emails. Its something I use on my pebble a lot and seeing the message is useful but sending an acknowledgement of some kind is pretty essential.

Like the Motiv ring, being an early adopter can be troublesome and in this case its time to wait and see what others do in the hybrid smartwatch space.

A little tale of my motiv ring

My Motiv ring on my hand

I really enjoyed having my Bluetooth Motiv ring really, it is great except a little while ago it started to not sync properly. Reporting the wrong battery percentage, syncing inconsistently, asking to be upgraded and just being a general annoyance.

I complain back to Motiv and they tried to diagnose the problems I was having with the ring. After a few days they asked if I was playing volleyball with the ring on? I said yes and they suggested using the other hand when playing volleyball. This sounds fine but the problem I have is being ambidextrous in something’s like sports is I switch hands all the time.

I explained I bought the ring for the whole point of wearing it during sports because my pebble watch can not really be worn while playing volleyball.

They suggested a replacement ring however their UK/European supplier has changed and they couldn’t issue a replacement over the winter period. I’m thinking Brexit might have something to do with this? Anyway cutting a long story short, I was completely refunded and I get to keep my current faulty ring. Good stuff from Motiv and I may consider getting a replacement once I see what happens in the near future (maybe a second version will support a few more knocks?)

In the meanwhile, I relooked at the Oura ring 2 but frankly its a lot more and there are some serious flaws in the Android app (no google fit, export, etc).

I’ll stay put and keep wearing the Motiv ring till its completely useless, as its still capturing data and the app is still syncing with google fit.