Google buys $40 million worth of smartwatch tech from Fossil Group | Ars Technica

A timely investment; see this Fossil Group post for more details

"All of Fossil's digital-faced smartwatches run on Google's Wear OS, so the two companies have already worked together for quite some time. But Fossil is one of many companies to develop "hybrid" smartwatches, most of which have analog faces and resemble traditional timepieces in most aesthetic ways.

However, they still have the internal tech necessary to track daily activity and sleep, as well as deliver smartphone alerts through vibrations, custom watch-hand movements, and other subtle techniques. These are features that Misfit devices already had when Fossil purchased the company. Some Misfit smartwatches and trackers even used side buttons to control smartwatch functions, like taking a photo with the phone's camera or pausing music playback. While hybrid smartwatches don't have touchscreen interfaces, run apps, or store music like Wear OS devices can, they excel in longevity by having battery lives that last months to years.

It's possible that Google wants to look into the "hybrid" side of smartwatches. Google, strangely, hasn't made its own Pixel smartwatch yet, so the company may want to see if and how it can incorporate some of Fossil's technology into its next Google-made wearables."

Google buys $40 million worth of smartwatch tech from Fossil Group | Ars Technica