Nearly all Fossil brands now have hybrid smartwatches

On the heels of Misfit announcing the Phase, its first hybrid smartwatch, a bunch of other Fossil Group brands want in on that action. Chaps, Diesel, Emporio Armani, and Michael Kors have all added hybrid smartwatches to their connected devices lineup. All of of their smarthwatches use traditional, analog watch displays, but you can track fitness and delivery notifications on them with just a few taps.

Those brands join other Fossil Group-owned brands that have put their spin on smartwatches and fitness trackers. The Fossil brand launched its Q line of wearables last year, which now includes Android Wear watches, discreet fitness trackers, and hybrid smartwatches. Fossil dabbled in wearables years ago, well before modern fitness trackers or the Apple Watch existed. But the company really began its push into that marketplace after acquiring Misfit last year. Since then, not only has Fossil adapted some of Misfit's technology into its wearables, but Misfit has also taken pages out of its parent company's playbook, particularly with the launch of its Phase hybrid smartwatch.

To bring the "hybrid" aspect to other brands under the Fossil umbrella, company representatives told me that each brand was tasked with designing the watch first. Then, many of them researched their customers to see what features they most use in a watch, connected or not. For example, Emporio Armani customers wanted a second time zone on their watches more than users of other brands, so all of Emporio Armani's hybrid watches have one sub-dial that can be customized to show any time zone. Kate Spade's hybrids have small champagne glasses at the six o'clock hour that gradually fill up based on a countdown that you can customize, which could be for when your vacation starts, when your birthday comes around, or when happy hour begins. 

Each brand also has its own mobile app that only connects to its smart devices, rather than using one app for all watches in every brand, like the original Fossil Q app. All of those apps are available for Android and iOS, and they will be available in China via the Baidu app store so users can connect their watches to devices with other operating systems.

Most of the hybrids under Fossil group have at least one feature that's unique to a brand's base, and that's a smart way of doing things. Fossil has enough companies under its umbrella to experiment with varying, unique features, and it removes the mess of trying to incorporate all of those small features into every device. While it's a more targeted approach to creating a smartwatch, the hybrid's core functionality is a solid base for all of the devices. Each hybrid uses an accelerometer to track steps, calories, distance, and sleep; each can filter notifications and deliver some to your wrist via vibrations and watch-hand movements; and each uses Link technology (like Misfit's Link feature) that lets you take a photo, ring your smartphone, or control music playback with one of the case's physical buttons. All of them are also powered by coin-cell batteries, so they will last at least six months before they need replacing.

Fossil Group might have more success getting its existing customers to try out wearables than other companies since those customers are already invested in each brand. Kate Spade's hybrid and connected watches, for instance, look and feel exactly like its analog watches, and most of them are around the same price point as regular watches. That removes many of the barriers to entry for users who may be intrigued by the Apple Watch or some Android Wear devices but find them unfashionable. Kate Spade's hybrid price point may also tempt consumers who don't want to shell out oodles of money for something that will be obsolete when a new model debuts in a couple of years.

But that only applies to Fossil Group's hybrid smartwatches. The company does offer a number of Android Wear-based devices that have full touch displays and can run third-party apps. But those will be confined to the restrictions of Google's operating system (they're still waiting for Android Wear 2.0 like everyone else.) There will always be users who want a smartwatch for what it can do—not for the touchscreen itself, but for the wrist-bound apps and suite of connected features that come along with it. The Apple Watch makes many (but not all) of those apps useful and user-friendly, so you can do more on a device like that than you can on one of Fossil's hybrid devices.

Android Wear watches and the Apple Watch are also much more literal devices—if you want to know who sent you a text message, you can glance down at the display and see the name of that person and their message. The watches are meant to stop you from unlocking your smartphone multiple times a minute, and you won't necessarily get the same effect with a hybrid device. Also with a hybrid, you'll have to remember combinations that you set, like your mom's messages making the large hand on the watchface turn to two o'clock.

There's no doubt that the strongest forces in the wearable world continue to be smartwatches and fitness trackers. However, we're getting to a place where more nuanced smartwatches could hold their own next to the biggest players by combining just the right number of features (and the right kinds of features) in a familiar, stylish form.