At long last, Google has revealed its first ever smart wearable, the Pixel Watch.
After first being unveiled at the company’s ‘Made By Google’ event overnight, Google has shared specific details on the new watch.
The Pixel Watch will run on Google’s Wear OS 3.5, sporting a 1.2-inch AMOLED display with 1,000 nits of peak brightness with a 450×450 resolution (~320ppi) and a Gorilla Glass 5 protective covering. The Stainless steel chassis protects the rear, and it is waterproof up to 5ATM (50M), meaning it’s keen for a swim.
Interestingly it will be powered by an Exynos 9110 chip from Samsung, rather than a Google owned chip like its Pixel smartphones. Alongside this there is 32GB of internal storage and 2GB of RAM.
Thanks to the company’s ownership of the Fitbit brand, the Pixel Watch has heavy integration with the fitness company’s software and health tracking features.
The new watch boasts “on-device machine learning and deep optimization down to the processor level”, which Google say has resulted in its most accurate heart rate tracking yet.
It also sports 40 different exercise modes, built-in GPS, Active Zone Minutes for working out, an ECG app to Atrial Fibrillation detection, Fitbit’s Sleep tracking and more on the Health Metrics Dashboard.
With the new watch, users will also get 6 months of Fitbit premium.
The Pixel Watch is set to boast a slew of safety features as well, including Emergency SOS, which makes contacting emergency services easy in situations where you are concerned for your safety or have an emergency.
“To give you added peace of mind, Google Pixel Watch is equipped with an Emergency SOS feature to alert emergency responders or trusted contacts when you’re in an emergency or feeling unsafe.”
Whilst it won’t be present at launch, Google also plan to implement Fall Detection, a feature already present in the Apple Watch.
Like its Apple rival, the Pixel Watch will detect if you’ve been in a fall or accident, and automatically notify emergency services in the event you are unconscious or unable to move.
As great as this sounds, there is a catch – the feature won’t be available until next year.
“Fall detection (coming in 2023) can sense if you’ve taken a hard fall, connecting you to emergency services and even auto-dialing if you’re unresponsive,” said Google in a blog post.
The Google Pixel Watch is available for purchase now, with devices to be shipped on October 13th, so those who buy one won’t get the new feature for a few months at least. Prices start at $549 AUD for the Wi-Fi model, whilst the 4G LTE model costs $649.
