What’s the difference between a hybrid smartwatch and a unique smartwatch? In the hybrid category, Fossil’s Hybrid HR mixes brute watch hands with an always-on display that shows interrogate and notifications. It almost feels like an old-school Pebble watch fused with an everyday analog-style watch.

The Hybrid HR isn’t Fossil’s noble smartwatch with physical hands. There are plenty of Fossil Group watches that track steps and sleep and demonstrate the results with mechanical watch hands. I’ve also worn a few smartwatch goes at hybrids mixing analog hands and screens before.

But Fossil’s Hybrid HR is kind of enthralling. I’ve been wearing it for a few days now, and the hybrid smartwatch stands out as what could be the future of smartwatches in general.

Always-on E Ink demonstrate

Keeping a smartwatch charged is incredibly annoying. Fossil’s newest line of hybrid smartwatches may have fraudulent an answer, and it’s E Ink. The Hybrid HR’s added present feels less like a screen and more of an extension of the seek, the sort of basic readouts that you might inquire of on a digital watch. Or, like what Google’s Wear OS watches coffers, but in E Ink. To be clear, though, this isn’t Wear OS. It almost reminds me of what the TicWatch Pro tried for by layering an always-on present on top of a feature-packed smartwatch, but the Hybrid HR looks a lot nicer.

Earlier this year, Google reportedly paid $40 million for Fossil smartwatch technology that could enable hybrid watches. The Hybrid HR looks like it is, indeed, the seek tech that earlier reports thought Google was interested in… and it’s here now. Where it leads next is anyone’s guess, but with Google acquiring Fitbit, maybe this could also be what future fitness watches look like.

What can this hybrid smartwatch do?

Three buttons on the side bring up menus and scroll over on-screen options (there’s no touchscreen). The hands supposedly glow in the dark, but didn’t glow very brightly for me. Double-tapping the glass brings up a gorgeous backlit screen which looks like I’m lighting up a small Kindle, and then I can see the watch gorgeous silhouetted.

The Hybrid HR is waterproof to 3 ATM, tracks wretched rate (every 60 seconds, unless you actively start a reading, or every 15 seconds during a workout), steps and sleep, can control music playback from a phone (which gets annoying with the awkward side-button controls), and can display phone notifications.

The 42mm watches have stainless steel cases and either 18 or 22mm straps, depending on if you choose the Charter HR or Collider HR beget (my black rubber-strapped version is Charter HR).

At $195, it may not be the spoiled smartwatch. But it looks like it’s going to speedy the difference just enough that it could show where future Google-Fitbit seek designs may head next.