Hands-on: Kate Spade Scallop Smartwatch 2 now features GPS, HR, and Google Pay support

Some of the most fashionable smartwatches in Fossil’s huge wearables empire comes from Kate Spade, the New York-based fashion company. Today, Kate Spade is announcing a refreshed Wear OS smartwatch called the Kate Spade Scallop Smartwatch 2.

A big complaint users had with last year’s Kate Spade watches was that they were lacking in hardware features compared to the competition. Thankfully the company fixed that with this year’s lineup — the Scallop Smartwatch 2 now features built-in GPS, a heart rate sensor, a 3ATM water resistance rating, and NFC for Google Pay support. This is great news for users who don’t want to sacrifice features for aesthetics.

The design certainly hasn’t been neglected though — each Scallop Smartwatch 2 not only features the iconic spade icon on the top of the watch face, that spade icon also acts as a quick way to monitor your heart rate. And when the spade is tapped, a new heart animation appears before the watch turns on the heart rate sensor.

Of course, like the first generation Scallop watches, these new models also feature the “choose your look” app that lets you match your watch face to the outfit you’re wearing.

As for the tech specs, the Scallop Smartwatch 2 comes with a 300mAh battery, a 42mm stainless steel case, 16mm strap lugs, and 4GB of on-board storage.

Overall, the Scallop Smartwatch 2 looks and feels like a proper sophomore product. It takes all the things we liked most about the first generation and brings more advanced features, which will certainly make it appeal to more users.

If you want one of these on your wrist, the Kate Spade Scallop Smartwatch 2 goes up for pre-order today and will be available in-store and online at katespade.com in late January 2019.

New watch faces for Fossil Sport and Gen. 4 Fossil watches

Fossil has another announcement today, this time for its Fossil Sport and fourth-generation Fossil smartwatches. The company is launching three new watch faces designed by marathoner, model, and entrepreneur Candice Huffine.

The watch faces, shown below, are meant to spread positivity and empowerment, and all feature motivational phrases chosen by Huffine.

Be sure to stay tuned to Android Authority for more CES 2019 coverage!