Update: We've found details and images of many of the new watches being shown off at launch, and you can see them in an easy-to-use gallery below.
The more established technology brands may have largely gone quiet on the smartwatch front, but Fossil is set to pick up the slack, as it’s announced that it will be bringing out 300 new touchscreen and hybrid watches this year, split across all its brands.
Only some of these will be 'true' smartwatches, with an Android Wear-powered Emporio Armani watch landing in September 2017 and the already-announced Misfit Vapor arriving in late summer.
That will be followed by a Diesel watch and two supposedly very slim Fossil-branded models, dubbed the Q Venture and Q Explorist.
We’ll also see two new Michael Kors smartwatches, with the men’s Access Grayson and the women’s Access Sofie landing.
Each different brand will come with a unique ‘micro-app’, designed to fit that brand, with the Michael Kors option, for example, allowing you to use your Instagram photos for your watch face.
Same specs, different designs
Other than the different micro-apps, the main difference between all these watches is their design, as they all pack roughly the same specs, with an AMOLED screen, a Snapdragon Wear 2100 chipset and Android Wear 2.0.
It sounds like a decent selection of watches, but the bulk of that 300 figure is going to be made up of hybrid watches – in other words ones which are likely to use coin cell batteries and an analog watch face, but with some smart features, such as notifications, though Fossil hasn’t shed much light on exactly what features they’ll include.
The first of these will be the slim Fossil Q Accomplice and Fossil Q Activist, both of which are set to launch this summer, followed by hybrid watches from DKNY, Marc Jacobs, Michele, Relic, Skagen, Tory Burch and others.
- Can't wait? These are the best smartwatches you can buy right now.
