Google is trying to revisit the relevance of wearables. Today, the company has officially unveiled its first private label smartwatch: the Pixel Watch. Google has begun redesigning its Wear OS wearable platform in partnership with Samsung. While Wear OS 3, the new version of Google’s wearable platform that technically launched alongside the Galaxy Watch 4 last year, is the first time we’ll see a skinless version on a real device.
First of all: prices. Google is asking for a lot: the Wi-Fi model is $349 and the LTE version is $399. The Galaxy Watch 4 with a better SoC and the Apple Watch SE with a much better SoC start at $250. Google is creating an uphill battle for itself with this price.
Google and Samsung’s partnership means the Pixel Watch is powered by the Samsung Exynos 9110 SoC with a cheap Cortex M33 co-processor for low-power watch face updates and 24/7 stat tracking. This SoC is a 10nm chip with two Cortex A53 cores and an Arm Mali T720 MP1 GPU. If you can’t tell by these specs, it’s a four year old chip and it was in the Galaxy Watch 3. For some reason, Google couldn’t get Samsung’s new chip from the Galaxy Watch 4, the Exynos W920 (5nm big upgrade, dual core Cortex A55 and GPU Mali-G68 MP2). It’s hard to understand why it’s so expensive.
The display is a full round 1.6-inch OLED display with a density of 320 pixels per inch (that should mean about 360 pixels across). The only size available is 41mm, the lid is Gorilla Glass 5, and the body is stainless steel in silver, black, or gold. It has 2GB RAM, 32GB eMMC, NFC, GPS, 2.4GHz Wi-Fi 802.11n (Wi-Fi 4) only support, and a 294mAh battery. For sensors, you get SPO 2 blood oxygen, heart rate, and an ECG sensor. It is waterproof up to 5 ATM, which means you can submerge it in water, wash your hands and be exposed to normal water. 10 ATM is generally preferred for serious competitive swimming, but the Apple Watch is 5 ATM and Apple has all sorts of promotions for swimming.
The black background of Google’s UI does a good job of hiding how big the display is in relation to the body, but a few screenshots show just how big the bezels are around this thing. They are big. Real big. Like, it’s hard to imagine that we’re still doing this in 2022 in a big way.
Own ranges and some options are not ready to run
Watch sizes are not listed, but there are watch straps labeled “large”(for wrist circumference 162–210 mm) and “small”(130–175 mm). The watch comes standard with a rubberized “Active” strap and you will receive both sizes in the box.
The Pixel Watch has branded watch bands, which is not a good thing. Apple gets away with it because it’s Apple, and Apple can spin an ecosystem of hardware partners in its sleep. Only Google options may be available on the Pixel Watch, depending on how sales go. The company has not named any launch partners. However, watch straps snap right into the case, allowing you to have a strap with traditional lugs or a strap that goes straight to the case.