Photo: Google
By: Nick Gambino
Google’s first watch – the Pixel Watch – has been coming long, and it looks like it’s finally almost here. The company announced its next hardware event is set for October 6th. The picture of a watch accompanying the announcement is a decent clue that we’re going to hear news about the wearable device.
We first saw Google’s Pixel Watch at their I/O event back in May. We don’t expect the forthcoming wearable to look much or any different than what we saw in the spring. So what does the Pixel Watch look like?
It’s actually pretty classy and might appeal to those Google purists who don’t want to give their money to Apple. Instead of a square face like the Apple Watch, this Android-powered device features a round face and a dome-like shape. It’ll come in three different color options – black, silver and gold, with swappable wrist bands.
The Pixel Watch has a tactile crown which is pretty much what any of these higher-tier smartwatches use.
As for the guts of this thing, it will obviously run on Wear OS. Other watches use the popular OS, much like how other phones use Android. This is, however, the first time Google has come out with its own watch, giving them a chance to edge in on the software and hardware watch market.
It’s interesting to see what they’re doing with Fitbit integrations, seeing as though Google owns the fitness tracker brand. They are still releasing Fitbit trackers and it doesn’t look like they intend to stop doing that.
The Pixel Watch can exist separately as it has more functionality and is not built to only count your steps and hours of sleep. It is however getting Fitbit integration where you’ll be able to track data directly from your Watch. This includes heart rate, steps, and sleep.
Google is taking a page out of Apple’s playbook and making the Pixel Watch not compatible with iPhones. It’s meant to work as part of the Pixel ecosystem.
You can watch the Google event where they’ll indeed release the new watch at 10 am ET on October 6th.
