Google let the Android wearable market languish long enough. Last year, the company put out the Pixel Watch to go alongside its smartphones as a demonstration of what a Wear OS smartwatch could be, and it was ultimately good, but not amazing. Sometimes products take a few rounds of iteration to really heat up, and that’s what makes the Pixel Watch 2 an exciting device. Too bad excitement is a quick route to a letdown.
Pixel Watch 2 – Design and Features
The Pixel Watch 2 isn’t reinventing Google’s smartwatch. Some of its design has changed, but until you flip it around, it’s mostly in subtle – and not all good – ways. Google has swapped out the metal casing, going for recycled aluminum instead of partially recycled stainless steel. This makes for a lighter watch, and it certainly doesn’t feel too hefty. But for a device that’s going to get into a lot, stainless steel would likely have been the better choice for durability. It’s still got waterproofing to 5 ATM at least – pretty much the standard for a device you’re going to take swimming. I haven’t run into any durability issues with the special Gorilla Glass in my testing, but I have to admit I’m surprised Google advertised this watch with a rock climbing clip. That glass surface is wholly exposed, and my experience with glass smartwatch screens on rock climbing walls has been that the glass loses that dance (unless it’s sapphire like on the Galaxy Watch 5. Then it's just the aluminum case that loses.).
The cover is the same small, round OLED display and curving glass that does a great job hiding where the display ends and the bezel begins. The bigger upgrade here is enabled by more efficient internals, as now Google is promising all-day battery life with an always-on display (AOD), as opposed to all-day battery life without AOD.
Google didn’t change the mechanism for attaching watch bands, which is good for continuity between products. Though, of the watches I’ve owned, I find this mechanism my least favorite. Samsung’s watch and my Pebble before it used traditional pins, offering wide compatibility with different watch bands. The Versa 3 had a somewhat flimsy latch mechanism that at least made swapping bands easy. The button press and twist/slide maneuver to remove and attach Google’s watch bands is finicky at best. My recommendation to everyone who won’t be keeping the stock band is to immediately buy an adapter to a pin-based watch band and promptly enjoy a wider selection of bands that you’ll be able to use with more watches in the future (provided you do the same thing then).
Though Google offers three metal case colors and multiple different band colors and styles, it doesn’t let you mix and match at the time of purchase. You can get a silver case with a blue or white band, a black case with a black band, or a champagne gold case with a hazel band. Presumably, these color combinations are meant to match the latest Pixel phones, and if the perfect match between the white watch and the white Pixel 8 Pro I tested is any induction, Google’s at least done a great job of that. Unfortunately, all the included bands are the sport band, which is more or less the same design found on Fitbit’s Versa 3 and newer. I find the band somewhat unsightly, as it creates an uneven seam with the watch. And even though it can feel tight, it struggles to get snug and hold the important sensors close to the skin.
Google’s buttons sit on one side of the watch while its speaker and mic sit on the other. Google says it’s upgraded the crown, and while I haven’t tested the original, the crown on the Pixel Watch 2 is exceptionally smooth and comes alongside motor-driven haptics that make it a pleasure to use. It has a bit of a deadzone for scrolling between pages, helping avoid accidental jumps, but otherwise it’s very sensitive to tiny scrolls. The other button requires a firm press, again good for avoiding accidents, but it can make the double-click to jump to the last used app a little tricky.
The microphone has proven reliable at picking up my voice if I speak loud and clearly, and even does a decent job getting the typical muttering I use with virtual assistants. The speaker that sometimes chirps back in response is not nearly so pleasant. It’s flimsy at low volumes and distorts readily at “high” volumes.
Some of the bigger design changes happened on the underside. Google has swapped out the charging mechanism and the sensors. The new design has a more advanced sensor array that promises better heart rate tracking and adds skin temperature and “cEDA” continuous electrodermal stress tracking. The sensors are key to some of the watch’s main features, like fitness tracking, active coaching, and health monitoring.
While Google changed the base design away from the Pixel Watch, omitting wireless charging to instead rely on the more reliable pogo pin charger, it didn’t actually use an entirely unique design. In fact, it may not be compatible with the old Pixel Watch charger, but the Pixel Watch 2 does work with the Fitbit Versa 3/Versa 4/Sense charger (even if it’s not a perfect fit).
Pixel Watch 2 – Software
Google’s update to Wear OS 4 with the Pixel Watch 2 sounded like it was going to be big, but I hardly noticed much beyond aesthetic differences between Wear OS 4 running on the Pixel Watch 2 and Wear OS 4 running on my Galaxy Watch 5, like notifications being to the left of the watch face on the Galaxy while the Pixel puts them below. Google has arranged app tiles horizontally, so swiping across the watch face jumps to new tiles that have quick data and access to apps. That’s a handy improvement, but not terribly exciting, as it was already on the Pixel Watch.
Google has introduced a way to back up and restore watch data as well as transfer the watch between phones. I tested out the latter feature, and it worked well enough, letting me avoid a factory reset of the watch. But whatever praise I might give Google for this is diminished by the reality that this feature should have been present at the introduction of Wear OS, not four generations in.
Google also introduced some more smarts for Assistant with the new ability to check into Fitbit health data, but the feature is half-baked at present. I could ask it how I slept for a simple recap just telling my how many hours I slept (not how many interruptions there were or anything extra) or ask how many calories I burned during the day (it insisted on calling the current day’s data “yesterday,” even though if I asked for the prior day’s data it would give me the correct data for that day.). If I wanted to get a little more nuanced, like asking it what my most intense exercise was, it just opts for a Google search. Sometimes it locks onto keywords and spits out a generic answer as well, so when I asked, “Is my resting heart rate going up or down?”, it just told me what my resting heart rate was that day.
A lot of things feel like they point to an overall lack of polish that might be blamed on Wear OS in general but are further the fault of Google – as Samsung steered clear. That shows up again in the always-on display, which itself is great but sometimes disappoints, as the watch won’t always show the main watch face as a background, instead sometimes just blurring out the active app and splashing up the time instead.
Pixel Watch 2 – Performance
I didn’t test the original Pixel Watch, but I’ve been running a Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 for a few months and had a Fitbit Versa 3 prior to that. In everyday operation the Pixel Watch 2 feels snappier and smoother than either device. Swiping through tiles, scrolling through notifications, and diving into apps is all surprisingly quick. The Galaxy Watch 5 is no slouch, but I was surprised at how much smoother everything felt on the Pixel Watch 2.
It’s quite an effective tool for getting whatever watch-based tasks I want done quickly. Even navigating maps went off without a hitch. The efficiency is up to Google’s claims. I never struggled to make the watch last its full 24 hours, even with frequent use and lots of activity tracking. Generally, I was ending 24-hour cycles with about 20-30% charge left, meaning it was just a quick hour on the charger while I did some work and I was back off to the races. All-day battery life is certainly good, but it’s the bare minimum of what should be acceptable. Having come off some time enjoy Samsung roughly 2-day battery life, even more time on the Versa 3’s 5-day battery life, and still longing for the week-long battery life (with AOD, no less) of my beloved Pebble Time Steel, Google isn’t impressing me one bit with a watch I need to recharge daily.
