What good is a watch that can’t help you keep track of time? This is an issue the Pixel Watch has been experiencing recently, with reports that the watch missed its alarm time. Google says the issue has been resolved and that a fix will be released eventually.
Google doesn’t explain what the problem is, but it’s most likely related to Android’s “Doze”power-saving feature. Complaints about the Pixel Watch are mostly related to morning alarms, so at night the watch was in sleep mode and the right part of the OS didn’t wake up to know it’s time to turn on the alarm. Sleep mode is a constant problem for non-Pixel Android phones that get aggressive sleep settings from manufacturers and often miss push notifications as a result. More aggressive power saving on a watch with a tiny 300mAh battery makes sense, but Google has clearly gone too far. Most reports about faulty alarms only say that the alarm was delayed by 1-10 minutes, not missed entirely, but this
The patch release is a little weird. First, this is Google’s March 2023 update announcement for the Pixel Watch, but there isn’t much left of “March”- they usually come out the first week of the month – and Google says the update will be out in a week or two. every. However, this still won’t fix your alarms. You’ll also need an update to the watch app, which Google says will be coming to the Play Store “in the coming weeks.”The need to change the OS and app suggests that this was not a small mistake, and that Google needed to create a special cutout specifically for alarms.
There are a few more minor changes in this release, such as the crown now being able to wake up the screen. Google also says this update will add the previously announced fall detection feature to the watch.