Google Just Paid $40 Million To Buy Fossil’s Secret Smartwatch Tech

We all have only been hearing rumors about a Google Pixel watch. It seems like it would soon be turning into a reality. Today, Fossil announced that it would sell some of its “intellectual property” to Google, in a whopping $40 million deal.

Under the terms, Fossil will also transfer a portion of its R&D employees, over to Google. In other words, the Fossil wearable tech team will now work under Google.

Since Google’s wearable operating system, Wear OS is doing well with constant upgrades, the only thing that the company lacks is a wearable device. According to Greg McKelvey, EVP and Chief Strategy and digital officer of the Fossil Group, the deal will result in the launch of a “new product innovation that’s not yet hit the market“.

Even before this, Fossil has been working with Google for a while. The entire Fossil group (Diesel, Armani, Skagen, and Michael Kors) has launched a number of wearable devices running on WearOS. Moreover, all the Fossil’s digital-faced smartwatches run on Google’s Wear OS.

From what it looks like, Google is mostly interested in the manufacturing experience and expertise that Fossil shows on its hybrid watches: a device that has some features of a smartwatch but looks and feels like a traditional one.

However, we can’t overlook the internal tech. The tech, that Fossil attained from wearable maker Misfit for $250 million, back in 2015 could be related to tracking sleep, daily activities, custom watch-hand movements, and more.

Presently, Apple owns the market industry with its smartwatches. Not to forget, the ECG feature on Apple smart Watch 4 that skyrocketed Apple watch sales. Amidst this, it will be interesting to see how a Google “Pixel watch” would perform.

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