Along with thePixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, Google finally, officially announced the sequel to its first smartwatch, thePixel Watch 2, at its Made by Google event in New York. We had the opportunity totry the watch out, and our main takeaway from the brief time we spent with it was that it’sverysimilar to the first-gen model. But there are a handful of objective upgrades here, even if they’re not obvious. Here are the biggest generation-to-generation improvements.
1A major chipset upgrade
The firstPixel Watchshipped with an older Samsung chipset, the Exynos 9110, supported by an ARM Cortex-M33 co-processor. Performance out of that setup was surprisingly good, though, and saw the first-gen watch roughly matching what other 2022 Wear OS watches offered. But battery life wasn’t great, with the original Pixel Watch often struggling to make it a full 24 hours with the always-on display active.
Google’s fitted the second-gen Pixel Watch with a Qualcomm Snapdragon W5, a considerably newer, more efficient chipset than the 9110 it used in the last version. Our hands-on time with the Pixel Watch 2 didn’t make a stark performance improvement obvious, but Google is promising better battery life in the Pixel Watch 2 than in the first generation: 24 hours with always-on display, up from the first generation’s estimated battery life of 24 hourswithoutAOD. We’ll need to test the Pixel Watch 2 for a longer period of time to see whether that claim holds water, but it’s a given we’ll seesomeimprovement to battery life.
2New health sensors
The Pixel Watch 2 packs a handful of new health sensors compared to the first Pixel Watch. It’s got new electrical sensors that enable ECG readings, something that wasn’t possible in the first model; an upgraded multi-path heart rate sensor Google says gathers more accurate heart rate data; a Fitbit Sense-style continuous electrodermal activity (cEDA) sensor that aims to quantify your stress levels based on electircal activity in your skin; and a skin temperature sensor that Google seems to be positioning mostly as a way to get more accurate sleep data.
We haven’t found the Fitbit Sense 2’s cEDA sensor particularly useful, but the additions of skin temperature sensing and ECG readings brings the Pixel Watch 2 more in line with other top dogs in the Wear OS space, like theSamsung Galaxy Watch 6series.
3A refined digital crown
One upgrade that wewereable to experience in our hands-on time with the Pixel Watch 2 was its new and improved digital crown. Compared to the first-gen Pixel Watch, the Pixel Watch 2’s crown is much smoother to rotate. Scrolling feels better on the software side, too, with a new inertial effect that sees the UI you’re scrolling through continue to move for a fraction of a second after you stop turning the watch’s crown. It’s not a particularly big improvement, but it does make using the crown feel just a little bit nicer.
4Faster charging
The Pixel Watch 2moves away from the inductive charging in the first generationto a pin-based charger like the ones Fitbit’s Sense and Versa chargers use. The change might make charging slightly clumsier than it was in the first generation — the magnetic pins only line up in one orientation, whereas the previous charger design worked at any angle. But it also facilitates faster charging.
While the first-generation Pixel Watchtakes about 110 minutesto charge to full, the Pixel Watch 2 can go from zero to 100 percent in 75 minutes. That’s still notfastfor a 306mAh battery cell, but it’s a big upgrade year-over-year. Charging the Pixel Watch 2 to full takes about 35 minutes less time than topping up the first generation, a difference you’ll definitely appreciate if you tend to charge your watch in the morning before you head out for the day.
5Wear OS 4
The Pixel Watch 2 comes with Wear OS 4 out of the box. It’s actually not the first watch available with Wear OS 4 — the Galaxy Watch 6 series beat Google to the punch in August — but it’s still a step up from the Wear OS 3.5 the first-generation watch is running. Wear OS 4 doesn’t bring a ton of user-facing changes, the most notable one being that users can transfer Wear OS 4-based watches from one phone to another without resetting the wearable in the process.
Because the first-generation Pixel Watch is in line to get Wear OS 4, this upgrade is only a temporary advantage for the Pixel Watch 2. But so far, all Google’s said about when the first Pixel Watch will get Wear OS 4 is that it’ll be “later this year.” If you want Wear OS 4 in a Google-y package ASAP, the Pixel Watch 2 is the place to get it.
Coming soon to a wrist near you
The Pixel Watch 2’s updates don’t look terribly impressive on paper, but at the same $350 as the original model, it should still be a better value proposition for new buyers. It seems unlikely it’ll be a sensible upgrade for owners of the first-gen watch, but depending on how much its new Snapdragon W5 chipset and Wear OS 4’s optimizations can improve battery life year-over-year, we expect it’ll be one of thebetter Wear OS watcheson the market.
The Pixel Watch 2 is available for preorder right now, with orders shipping beginning next week.
Google Pixel Watch 2
The Google Pixel Watch 2 is the sequel to Google’s first self-branded smartwatch. The second generation doesn’t reinvent the wheel, instead offering a handful of low-key improvements like a redesigned digital crown, Wear OS 4 out of the box, and a newer chipset that should offer better performance and battery life.
