Fossil Gen 5 smartwatches get stripped of more than half of its watch faces

Times have been rough for Fossil smartwatch owners and admirers. The Fossil Gen 6 was very recently made official, and to the disappointment of many, it will be launching with an outdated operating system.

Buyers of the latest Fossil wearables will have to wait until sometime in 2022 to get the new Wear OS 3 that the Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic are already running. The Fossil Gen 5 family, on the other hand, will not be getting any updates at all.

To add some insult to injury, the smartwatch manufacturer has gone as far as to strip down the Fossil Gen 5 of more than half of its available watch faces through a Play Store update currently rolling out.

There are a few key factors that separate a smartwatch from a normal one—functionality, connectivity, and customization. Now, we all know how refreshing it feels when we change the wallpaper for our home and lock screens and rearrange the layout of the apps and widgets, which also stands true for smartwatches.

As stated by 9to5google, Fossil is taking out 33 of the 55 Gen 5 watch faces, which has left owners frustrated and disappointed. Unfortunately, the company is yet to give an explanation for getting rid of these options.

To be frank, the update brings two new additions called “Fitness Digital” and “Dashboard Digital”. You can take a look at them in the screenshots below.