Update, April 30 (5:00 pm ET): The update is rolling out again!
What you need to know
- Fossil is pausing its rollout of Google's H MR2 update for Wear OS.
- The company addresses some issues with the update and has not specified when it will resume rolling out to devices.
- Google's H MR2 update was released last year to provide speed and battery improvements to the platform.
Google surprised many when it rolled out an update for Wear OS, aiming to improve the performance of its smartwatch platform. The update, dubbed H-MR2, brought some under-the-hood improvements to make Wear OS faster and more battery efficient. The Suunto 7 received the update first, followed by the Fossil Gen 5 smartwatch, but apparently, Fossil is having some issues and has paused the rollout.
According to a Fossil representative on Reddit, the company is working out some issues with the update, which is why some users have yet to receive the update:
We are indeed holding the system updates for Gen 5 as we're trying to iron out some issues. We're getting closer to the release date now (though I cannot confirm here), and I'll definitely let you know when it starts rolling out. Thank you for your kind patience so far! Looking forward to bringing back the perks of Gen 5 to you soon.
The cause of the hold is unknown, but users that have already received the update do not seem to have any problems with their smartwatches. This also does not seem to affect Fossil's own software update which was rolled out last year to the Gen 5 as well as the Gen 5E which is arguably the company's best Wear OS watch. That update also brought some new features as well as improvements to battery life.
Hopefully, the issues get ironed out sooner rather than later so more people can take advantage of the latest Wear OS improvements, particularly owners of the Fossil Gen 5 LTE, which has not received either update.
Update, April 30 (05:00 pm ET) — Fossil is now updating the Gen 5 once more
Fossil has restarted the Gen 5 update once more. Users over on reddit have reported an update that rolled out this week, hitting even devices which had received the previous buggy build. If it hasn't yet shown up on your device, we can walk you through how to check for updates on Wear OS.
Still a good smartwatch
The Fossil Gen 5 remains one of the best Wear OS smartwatches money can buy. It offers a great design, swappable watch bands, and additional software from Fossil to enhance its functionality. And thanks to the latest Wear OS update, Fossil Gen 5 watches are even better.
