Fossil Q Explorist HR review

There are a plethora of Fossil watches already on the market, but the company has made some serious upgrades to its range with the Q Explorist HR.

The Fossil Q Explorist debuted back in 2017, and the tech quickly aged. A lot of the competition around the Explorist improved, including some watches from the Fossil brand itself.

With the Q Explorist HR, Fossil has made a concerted attempt at making a watch that competes with the latest products like the Samsung Galaxy Watch or Apple Watch 3, without losing the unique Fossil looks.

There’s also the new Fossil Q Venture HR, which is marketed at women but may be suitable for anyone looking for a smaller wristwatch.

With lots of new tech pushed inside, a new even more premium design and a focus on the fitness prowess of what the company is calling Gen 4 tech, the Fossil Q Explorist HR may be right up your street.

Fossil Q Explorist HR price and release date

• Out now
• Starts at £249 / $255 / AU$429

You can now order the Q Explorist HR from the official Fossil website in the US, UK and Australia.

The price of the watch differs depending on what version you're looking to buy. The cheapest version with a silicone or leather strap is set at £249 / $255 / AU$429. If you want the watch with a stainless steel strap you'll have to spend a touch more at £269 / $275 / AU$469.

Design and display

• Various case colors and strap materials to choose from
• A premium but big build
• Screen looks good but has a large bezel

The Q Explorist HR is a larger watch - the company has its new Q Venture HR for those with smaller wrists - and it features a premium-build metal design. It's a 45mm case size, which is on the larger end of watches and gives it the space for a larger touchscreen in the middle.

We don't know the exact specs for the display - for some reason Fossil doesn't share this information - but it looked bright and clear. We found it easy to move around the display with our finger as it's a larger size than some other smartwatches.

You have a selection of different designs to choose from. For the watch body, you'll find it comes in blue, silver, black, rose gold, gunmetal or smoke and each is made of stainless steel.

There is also a variety of strap options including metal links or silicone. There's also a leather option - this is the one we've reviewed, and we really like it - that has silicone on the inside that makes it comfortable for exercising. You can see all of the design and strap combinations on Fossil's official website.

We've found the brown leather mixed with blue body to be a bold look, but the Q Explorist HR looks attractive in this color. It sits large on your wrist. but you won't find it all that heavy as Fossil has managed to keep it light.

The case thickness is 13mm, which is about the standard for a smartwatch. It's also water resistant, or what the company calls swimproof. Specifically, it has a resistance rating of 3ATM, so you'll be able to take this in a pool or shower without worrying about ruining it.

The right hand side of the watch has two buttons that you can tailor to open whatever apps you see fit, while in the middle there's a crown that you can rotate to skip through menus within the UI.

If you're looking for a watch with a particularly big display, this is well worth putting on your shopping list of potential options. Be warned though, you can still see a relatively thick black bezel running around the outside - the screen won't reach out to the edges of the watch.

There's also an always-on screen option here that means you'll always be able to glance at the time on your wrist without raising it and waking up all of the smart features. It's a small feature, but a nice touch.

Fitness

• Includes GPS and a heart rate monitor
• It's water-resistant and can track swims
• Much better for fitness than past Fossil watches

Fossil watches have yet to specialize in fitness features, and you’ve often been better off looking to a proper running watch or other smartwatches to get the best experience in your workouts.

The Fossil Q Explorist HR wants to change that though, and this is the best attempt yet from the company to make a fully fledged fitness watch.

It may look too premium to take running, but there’s lots of tech here that will do more than track your step count.

For one thing, it comes with Google Fit and Google Fit Workout apps on board, so you can track your exercise regime easily using them, or download other apps from the Google Play Store.

There’s a heart rate monitor on the back of the watch that sits close to your skin and will take readings throughout the day. It will also constantly monitor your heart rate when you’re in the middle of exercise, which is particularly helpful and we found it to be accurate.

It’s useful to have a picture of your heart rate throughout the day, and it’s even more useful to have an idea of your workout HR results.

GPS is available on the Fossil Q Explorist HR as well, so it will be able to track your location even if you go running without your phone. We did find the watch took a frustratingly long time to connect, and we were left waiting over 30 seconds to start our workout while the watch connected.

When it was connected, it stayed connected on a 45 minute run around some rural areas and we found it gave a similar report of the distance to what we know it to be. 

If you want a clear picture of your location when running and cycling, this is a great option.

The watch is also waterproof and capable of tracking your swims as well, although we've yet to test exactly how it performs when you're in a pool. We hope to do that soon and include it here as a future update.

Specs and features

• NFC allows for contactless payments with Google Pay
• Wear OS is easy to navigate and about to get updated
• Snapdragon Wear 2100 chipset performs well but is dated

Everything from previous Fossil watches is available again here, but this time there's some new tech inside that adds some extra features.

There's an NFC chip that allows you to use Google Pay from your wrist, meaning you can make quick and easy contactless payments.

The watch comes running the latest Wear OS software, which is easy to navigate, and Google is about to push out new updates to improve the platform and make navigating around the watch even easier.

Having Wear OS means you can download any Wear OS app from the Google Play Store and have it running on your watch right away, plus it will work alongside iPhones as well as Android devices.

The Q Explorist HR has the Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 2100 chipset inside, which we've previously seen perform well in a variety of watches since it was announced in 2016.

We didn't have any stuttering or performance issues in our time using the watch, but you won't get any of the benefits of a newer chipset called the Wear 3100 that we've now heard about.

The newer chipset is capable of better battery life, and that may have been worth waiting for. Fossil has said it will be making more watches with this tech inside, so you may want to wait to buy a new watch when those are announced.

Battery life

• Lasts around a day
• Charges fast

The Fossil Q Explorist HR won’t be able to last as long as the new Samsung Galaxy Watch, but you’ll find it will get through a whole day before needing to be recharged. That's consistently the case with this watch in our experience.

Often we got to bed with around 15 or 20% leftover in the tank on the watch, which we weren't overly impressed by.

With more limited usage you may find the Q Explorist HR will last for more than a single day, but we didn’t manage to get the watch to last for more than a day and a bit. Two days would be the maximum we could foresee.

Charging the watch is easy with a proprietary charger that comes in the box. The charging plate is magnetic so it'll attach easily to the rear of the watch and Fossil recommends you only use the charger in the box to recharge the device. 

We found that the watch charged up remarkably quickly, so it shouldn't take you long to pump more battery into your watch when you need it. 

The new fast charging feature means you can place it down to charge for an hour and know it will get you through an evening easily.

There’s no low-power battery mode on the Q Explorist HR though, which would have been a way to easily prolong the battery life of the watch.

Fossil has called the new tech included in the Q Explorist HR its Generation 4 update, and it's perhaps the most significant change we've seen to its range of products.

Smartwatches from the company have always worked well, but the lack of fitness features have meant these are a struggle to recommend to anyone looking for top-end tech.

With Generation 4, the company has solved some of the biggest problems with the Fossil range and the Q Explorist HR is a solidly recommendable smartwatch because of this new tech.

Who's this for?

This is a big smartwatch, so if you're looking for a hefty timepiece to wear on your wrist this will suit you.

If you like the design of the Q Explorist HR and what Wear OS can do, you'll like this watch as it sports top-end tech like GPS and a big display, so you can read your notifications and use apps on your wrist.

There's no 4G/LTE support on the Q Explorist HR, but considering what else this watch can do it shouldn't be a massive problem for most users.

Should you buy it?

The tech here all adds up, so if you want a new smartwatch with all of this tech on board at an affordable price then the Q Explorist HR is a good option.

You may want to wait until Fossil announces a new watch sporting the Snapdragon Wear 3100 chipset, but we're not certain when that will actually land so it may be one long wait.

The price of the Q Explorist HR is at the mid-range of Wear OS watches you can buy right now, so you'd be hard pressed to go wrong with this watch.

First reviewed: September 2018

The competition

Don't think you'll want to buy the Fossil Q Explorist HR? You may want one of these watches we've listed below.

Samsung Galaxy Watch

Samsung’s latest watch doesn’t come with Wear OS software like we had heard was rumored before the event, but it is running the now quite mature Tizen platform from the company and offers an impressive experience.

It’s mostly focused on exercise and notifications, plus it comes in two different sizes, with one sporting a 46mm case and the other coming in a 42mm size with a smaller screen but all the same tech built-in.

Read the full Samsung Galaxy Watch review

Apple Watch 3

Own an iPhone? The best smartwatch to work with iPhone is Apple's own Watch 3, so if you're in the Apple ecosystem you may want to opt for this square device running watchOS software.

This is particularly good at fitness tracking, and you'll also be given access to LTE features without your phone if that's what you want.

Read the full Apple Watch 3 review

Fossil Q Venture HR

Like all of the features you’re getting on the Fossil Q Explorist HR, but you’re not sure about the large design? You may want to opt for a Fossil Q Venture HR that’s smaller and more suitable for those with slimmer wrists.

Read our hands on Fossil Q Venture HR review