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Fossil adds LTE to its Gen 5 Wear OS smart watches from $349, still using Snapdragon 3100

The past two years have helped to improve Wear OS a fair bit, but the best is yet to come with the Snapdragon Wear 4100 series processors coming soon. Now, at CES 2021, Fossil is unveiling two new Gen 5 smart watches that don’t bring that new chip but, instead, add LTE support.

Launching this spring, the Fossil Gen 5 LTE will come in two different variants: one in black, the other in rose gold. Both have essentially the same design. That design is slightly updated from the standard Gen 5 look with slimmer buttons but with the same charging method, 1.3-inch display, and 45mm case size. There are three buttons as usual: a rotating crown and two shortcut buttons.

Under the hood, the Fossil Gen 5 LTE series offers up a Snapdragon Wear 3100 chipset. With the 4100 now available, that’s certainly a bit disappointing, but it does still come with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage, which means performance should at least be decent. NFC, GPS, a speaker, and 3ATM water resistance are also on board. Fossil also claims 24 hours of battery life as well.

fossil gen 5 lte

As far as the LTE itself goes, these watches are compatible with Verizon in the US and can be set up completely through the Wear OS app, a feature that Google introduced last year.

Pricing for Fossil Gen 5 LTE lands at $349 — a mere $50 premium over the regular version.

At CES 2021, Fossil is also introducing a Gen 5E edition of Michael Kors Access and MKGO Wear OS watches that starts at $250. There’s also a new Hybrid HR watch designed by Skagen in the Jorn, which will launch for $195.

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