Skagen Falster 2 review: Fitness & heart rate tracking work well; battery life is a drawback

Price: Rs 19,995 onwards

Specs: 1.19-inch OLED touchscreen, 390 x 390 pixels, 40mm case size, 20mm band size, Swim proof, activity tracking, heart rate tracking, GPS, NFC, Bluetooth 4.1, WiFi n, 300mAh battery with fast charge, Wear OS by Google

Skagen launched its Falster smartwatch in India in 2018 and while it impressed in design, we found it to be missing on a lot of features. Now, the company has launched its successor – Skagen Falster 2 that takes care of the majority of the issues from the first-generation watch.


You have to hand it to Skagen for delivering one of the best-looking smartwatches running Wear OS by Google. With a 40mm case, the watch is of ideal size for both men and women. Plus, the lightweight minimal design makes it stand out from the competition. It’s got a round dial with black bezels and a silver casing, two buttons and a rotating crown button. Our review unit had a matching silver mesh strap with magnetic latch which made the watch easy to wear and take off. What further impresses is that the Falster 2 is swim proof up with 30 meters water resistance (3ATM): you can wear it in the swimming pool without worry.



What further enhances the appearance of the watch is its OLED display. You get a 1.19-inch full circular screen which is bright and shows deep blacks. In fact, when the display is off, it’s almost impossible to identify where the display ends, and bezels start. We liked the great viewing angles and vibrant colours – get a colour rich watch face with and you will appreciate the screen more. The touch response of the screen is also great, and you can even navigate using the crown dial if you prefer.

It runs Wear OS by Google (Wear OS 2.1) and can be used with Android as well as iOS devices. We used the watch with Google Pixel 3 for review. We liked that the Falster 2’s buttons can be customized to launch apps and you can even control music playback. There are options to track workouts on the watch which is a great to have. Skagen has added GPS, NFC as well as heart rate tracking to the Falster 2 – features that were missing on the Falster 1. Wear OS has been improved over the years and now we feel it’s much more intuitive to use making it a smart choice for Falster 2. The only issue we saw is that the watch tends to show lag at random places – sometimes in waking up the screen, other times in launching an app. This is most likely because the watch uses the ageing Snapdragon 2100 processor.



Fitness tracking as well as heart rate tracking work well. We matched it with a Fitbit, and it was almost the same with less than 5% difference in the tracking. The biggest problem with the watch is its battery life. A full charge is good enough only for a day’s usage which means you would have to charge it daily. Thankfully it has fast charge and you will get around 80% battery in one hour of charge.

At its asking price, the Falster 2 would have been a fantastic smartwatch if it wasn’t for the sub-par battery life. In the same price range, you can also consider the Samsung Gear S3 and Fitbit Versa if you don’t mind proprietary OS.