Google’s first smartwatch built for their own eight-year-old wearable ecosystem has arrived. Google’s previous hardware entries didn’t quite nail it first time, but the tech giant carved out followings in very competitive markets with their Pixel phones and Pixel Buds. Like its phone and bud predecessors, Google Pixel Watch faces the same level of competition. And like its phone and bud predecessors, it doesn’t get everything right the first time but stands as a strong first effort.
Pixel Style
Pixel Watch uses a familiar round face with a machined crown at 3 o’clock. It’s a classic timepiece template on which the designers have applied a very modern, very clean and very ‘Google’ look. The two-tone macro design is minimal with the polished aluminium and deep black glass creating a pleasing contrast.
Our review model comes with a ‘Charcoal Active’ style band that meets the two in the middle in terms of shading and colour. The band also meets right in the middle of the fused-clam shape where the black and silver interface.
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Although the round format reduces the space available for the display creates a more comfortable watch that allows more wrist articulation.
Google have created a very specific UI and menu set with the size around the shape and size their Pixel Watch. Information fits neatly into a generous cross-shaped area covering the centre of the screen across all the apps and tiles I could find.
Slim Smartwatch
Google Pixel Watch is quite small next to practically any ‘full-size’ smartwatch. Some companies offer a smaller 42mm version of their devices, Pixel Watch’s 41mm standard is dainty next to those.
It’s also quite slim. The device stands around 12mm deep which matches the refined radius to produce a very unobtrusive smartwatch.
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The simple visual design and choice of materials are very ‘Google’. It’s a minimalist, almost cold design that relies on contrast to create detail. The black watch face contrasts with the polished silver rear along a defined edge. The two meet half around the circular silhouette creating a futuristic clamshell design.
Our Polished Silver review model comes with a middle grey and manages to meet the black and mirrored surface halfway and create a gentler but no less eye-catching gradient.
Art Direction
A lot of work went into customisable watch faces. A host of different widgets can be applied easily to a host of templates as well as visual options, like colour, font and other adornments. This system allows for impressive levels of user-personalisation.
The designers went tastefully wild with the templates. While most are function-heavy with an eye on attractive design, some are almost purely ornamental.
There are also hundreds, if not thousands, of other faces that can be downloaded from the Google Play Store on your watch or on your Android phone. These are made with more advanced face-creation tools and offer a massive variety.
Some downloadable faces offer some user customisation so you can also morph these to your taste. Most are made for the ecosystem rather than specifically for Pixel Watch and vary in how they work with the resolution, screen size and round format. A large portion of watch faces are paid content, but a greater number are free.
Google Pixel Watch offers one smaller font size and three bigger font sizes than the device default. For those with sharp eyesight, it’s a nice way to extend the information available on screen. For those whose eyesight isn’t quite as sharp, Pixel allows for three larger fonts.
Users can also create a custom ‘Tiles’ menu. Swiping from right to left on the home screen will bring up a series of tiles to swipe. There are over a dozen to choose from – FitBit stuff like exercise goals and sleep, handy applets like alarm, weather and timers, and productivity companions like Agenda and Maps.
A Tactile Interface
The crown’s placement at 3 o’ clock doesn’t cause it to prod the wrist, mostly due to the device’s smaller form. That placement also allows for the secondary button to be placed simultaneously easy to reach and difficult to accidentally activate.
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The crown is easy to move with precision and haptics give its rotation some reliable feedback. It’s also a handy way to navigate some of the list-heavy menus you’ll come across, especially since there isn’t a huge display area to swipe our way down without covering what we are perusing.
One standout feature is a surprisingly usable keyboard for jotting down notes, searching Play Store or even replying to emails or texts.
Display Everywhere
Google Pixel Watch features a 1.2″ AMOLED display. At 320dpi, it looks sharp, and more importantly can cleanly display a large amount of information on the relatively small device.
There is a large black bezel around the display which is mostly invisible thanks to a dark UI. The bezel keeps the touch area on the relatively flat area of the display and while it wastes a little real estate, the user experience is probably better for the dead zone.
Pixel Watch is designed for use outdoors no matter how bright it gets. The screen can reach 1,000 nits when it needs to. In practice, the AMOLED was impressively resistant to being washed out by sunlight. Flashes of colour similarly ‘pop’ from the darkness that the watch face usually presents.
Stamina and Charging
Google rate their Pixel Watch for 24 hours with the Always-On Display off. This isn’t a great figure, even if Apple bizarrely gets away with worse. I found that I could easily get 24 hours with my moderate level of usage, but I still found it a minor nuisance to have to charge every day.
With the Always-On Display enabled and the full range of sensors running, Google Pixel Watch will run down in 17-18 hours. For power users, this may cause some headaches until you work that new charging habit into your routine.
To counter this, charging Google Pixel Watch is quick and convenient. The device comes with a 10W magnetic puck that will charge the device from 0-100% in around an hour. Though wireless charging is not officially supported, users can indeed use the Qi standard to charge Pixel Watch with a huge range of wireless products, including phones with reverse wireless charging.
A Good but Not Perfect Fit
Google Pixel Watch captures most of WearOS’s best features, can take advantage of a massive selection of apps and faces supported by the device. But it’s not complete complete compatibility – some types of application just don’t run (like browsers) and some faces are visible on the store but are inaccessible.
Similarly, FitBit compatibility brings most features that a premium FB device would offer but the list is not complete. Auto exercise modes that start, stop or pause without user actions aren’t available on Pixel Watch. Neither are high/low/abnormal heart-rate notifications. Blood oxygen monitoring is coming in the future.
Some features are present but not fully implemented, the heart-rate monitor seems to only support continuous monitoring without the battery-saving less frequent options.
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Pixel Watch comes with six-months of free FitBit Premium. A generous offer but you’ll need to sign up with a payment option and remember to cancel the subscription if you don’t want to be charged.
It also must be said that some features you expect to be managed or monitored from Wear App are only available as part of the FitBit service, some of these are only available with FB Premium. Detailed sleep reports, stress management, long-term health tracking and guided exercise modes will cost you.
This means that some of the more basic functions, like sleep tracking and , require the user download and sign up for at least FitBit’s free service if they haven’t already. It also means you’ll be using two apps to get anything near the best from the device.
Ample Power
The device is powered by an Exynos 9110 CPU that, when paired with 2GB RAM, gives a generally smooth performance. Google Pixel Watch is swift enough to never get in the way. It’s not as lightning fast as a flagship smartphone, and some screens can’t keep up with the quicker swipes.
A generous 32GB of storage allows users to avail of a music player for streaming-free tunes on the move. The haptic feedback is excellent. Movements of the crown have a nice precise tick to them.
Specifications – Google Pixel Watch
| RAM: | 2GB |
| Storage: | 32GB |
| Display: | AMOLED, 1.2″, 320dpi – 384 x 384, Corning Gorilla Glass 5 |
| OS: | WearOS 3.5 |
| Sensors: | Accelerometer, Gyro, Heart rate, Altimeter, Compass, SpO2, ECG |
| Connectivity: | – Bluetooth 5.0, A2DP, LE – NFC – GPS/GLONASS/Galileo/Beidou -LTE/eSIM |
| Dimensions: | 41 x 41 x 12.3 mm |
| Weight: | 36 grams excluding strap |
| Water Resistance: | 5ATM, up to 50 metres depth |
| Charging: | Magnetic 10W charging puck included |
| Battery: | Li-Ion 294 mAh, Qi Wireless Charging at 10W |
| Chassis Colours: | Matte Black, Polished Silver (reviewed), Champagne Gold |
Style, Substance but Not Stamina
At the higher end of Android watches, Google Pixel Watch looks and feels the part. It’s a gorgeous piece of visual design and yet another perfect application of the brand’s design language.
Access to the established FitBit ecosystem while getting most of the best of WearOS is a strong proposition. The UI is amazing – clean, intuitive and well built around the hardware.
The stamina lets it down and the compromises to the FitBit functionality may give potential users pause. Not auto pause, obviously.
Google Pixel Watch Pricing and Availability
Google Pixel Watch Wi-Fi model is available now from €379/£339/$349 direct from Google. Ireland does not have have mobile carriers who allow eSIM so the LTE model is not available here.
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Elsewhere, Google Pixel Watch LTE (eSIM) model is available now from €419/£379/$399.
