With the official launch of the Skagen Falster Gen 6, which took place earlier this year, a partnership began between Amazon and Fossil with the intention of bringing Alexa to the brand’s Wear OS smartwatches. A few months later, the function is now available (or, better, being released).
For those wondering what Skagen has to do with Fossil, here is the answer: the Danish company was bought by Fossil in 2012, becoming a subsidiary.
Here’s Alexa on Fossil and Skagen smartwatches with Wear OS
The latest smartwatch launched by the Danish brand Skagen was the sixth generation Falster. The Amazon Alexa app was pre-installed on the device; once opened, however, the app only showed the message “Coming soon” (coming soon).
During the month of January, immediately after the launch, Skagen and Fossil declared that the Alexa app would become functional on the smartwatch in the arc of 2022, without offering a more precise timing. Thanks to some reports from different users collected by 9to5Google, it seems that the wait is over.
A silent update of the Amazon Alexa app has enabled Alexa support on Wear OS on sixth-generation Fossil and Skagen smartwatches.
Now, once the app is open, you will need to grant Alexa permissions to use the microphone; secondly, you will need to download the Alexa app on the paired smartphone and connect both the app and the smartwatch to your Amazon account (in the Alexa app on your phone, follow the path “ Devices> Add device ” and select “Smartwatch”).
Once pairing is complete, you will be able to use Alexa on Fossil and Skagen smartwatches with Wear OS. The app will also suggest setting up a shortcut button to launch Amazon’s voice assistant since it won’t work with “always listening” commands like Google Assistant on Wear OS does by default.
Within the app, it is possible to interact with Alexa via voice, using, in addition to the classic generic questions, various commands including the request to read notifications, the request to call from the watch and the very comfortable controls of devices for the home. intelligent.
There is a big but in all of this. Alexa cannot read responses verbally on Wear OS: it offers, in fact, only textual feedback (with often messy formatting). However, everything still seems to be under development, since some questions, such as those relating to the weather, offer more complete and better-organized answers.
Another small annoyance is dictated by the Alexa notification constantly present on the paired smartphone. As mentioned at the beginning, the compatibility of Alexa with the Fossil and Skagen smartwatches (sixth generation) is in a gradual release: it should already be available for most Fossil Gen 6 and Skagen Falster Gen 6 smartwatch owners.
Fossil also hadn’t ruled out that Alexa support could also be extended to its older Wear OS-based smartwatches in the near future.