Enlarge (credit: Google)
Years of rumors are finally coming to fruition today—Google is finally launching the Pixel Watch. Google has been building a smartwatch OS for eight years, but it has never made self-branded smartwatch hardware. That changes today, or at least “this fall,” when the Pixel Watch is slated to hit store shelves.
Google only gave a brief overview of the Pixel Watch on Wednesday and didn’t include specs or a price. The watch includes Fitbit integration, the expected Google apps, and the design that leaked earlier. The front is all glass with spinnable crown on the site. The body is stainless steel and the bands are removable. It supports NFC for tap and pay, and there’s a new Google Home app.
The bands come off. (credit: Ron Amadeo)
Google’s smartwatch OS—first called “Android Wear” and now “Wear OS”—has been dormant for years in both the hardware and software categories. Qualcomm strangled the Android smartwatch market by going six years between significant smartwatch system on a chip releases, and Google let three years pass between major Wear OS updates. Google launched a plan to resurrect its smartwatch platform in the past year, with the launch of Wear OS 3, and a serious, more reliable hardware partner in Samsung. The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 dumped Samsung’s Tizen OS and is the first (and so far only) Wear OS 3 watch. So far, the plan seems to be working, with Counterpoint Research tracking a huge Wear OS market share increase year over year, and now the OS is in striking distance of the Apple Watch.
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