It’s been a big year for Pixel already with the Pixel 9 and 9 Pro releasing a few weeks ago and the super fantastic Pixel 9 Pro Fold launching last week. Next up is the Pixel Watch 3. I’ve been a big fan of the Google Pixel Watch since the first one launched two years ago, but it’s come a long, long way since then, with the Pixel 2 improving things quite considerably and the Pixel 3 feeling like it’s Google’s smart watch concept fully realised with more choice than ever.
The Pixel Watch 3 now comes in two sizes – 41mm and 45mm. The 41mm version has 10% more screen real estate due to smaller bezels, looking remarkably different from the original Pixel Watch now, and the 45mm version offers 40% more screen real estate than the Pixel Watch 2 and is absolutely stunning.
Size isn’t the only improvement with both watches having a new Actua display that is twice as bright as before coming in at 2,000 nits of peak brightness. The improved brightness coupled with the larger display makes for a whole new viewing experience that makes it a lot easier to see what’s on screen, which makes a big difference for a smart watch.
Similarly, it can go as low as 1 nit in dark environments which is great for distractibility and the refresh rate can also now go as low at 1hz which adds to power efficiency of the screens.
The larger screen only makes things easer to see, but it allows more complications to be shown around watch faces, with data such as calories burned, flights climbed and other metrics that you might want to see now visible depending on which watch face that you’re using
Speaking of the battery life, I managed to get somewhere between 1-2 days with the larger 45mm model. This is thanks to a battery that is 35% bigger in the larger 45mm model and a new, improved battery save mode. There’s also 20% faster charging on both models as well.
There’s a bunch of improvements on the app side, with a new Camera app letting you control your camera to great results. I was surprised how great the latency was, and how many options were available on the watch (this is also available on older Pixels as well).
There’s a new recorder which acts pretty much how it does on a Pixel phone, using AI to transform audio to text, and easily being able to find on your Pixel as soon as it’s finished.
You can now also use the Watch to watch your Nest Cam fees, which would previously prompted you to open up on your phone, and if you’re a Google TV user, you can now change the volume and inputs right from your watch as well. None of these things are particularly new experiences for a smart watch, but they’re good to have here.
The rest of the improvements come in the way of health, safety and fitness. There’s some great new safety features including a safety check that lets you set a timer for when you’re out that will share a location with contacts once expired, a new fall detection safety measure and the ability to display your medical information.
A massive inclusion is a new loss of pulse detection that can alert emergency services when the watch detects you have lost your pulse. Obviously this isn’t something that I’ve gotten to test, and it’s unlikely it’ll come to Australia in the near future, currently only confirmed for Europe, but it’s a big improvement.
Outside of these things, there’s a bunch of new Fitbit improvements, including the ability to build custom runs to specifically how you want to warm up, and match your personal best based on specific runs that you’ve created, with improvements to reaching your goals with real-time guidance as well.
If you’re a Fitbit Premium member (6 months included with Watch), you’ll also be able to take advantage of AI for Fitbit to analyse your goals and recommended personalised runs for you. Similarly, AI and motion sensing can measure running technique to help improve performance.
Two of the features that I really liked are Morning Brief, which wakes you up with a summary that lets you know how you slept, how ready you are for exercise and other facts like the weather, as well as a readiness score that uses sleep, heart resting heart rate and heart rate to tell you whether you should rest or how hard you should work on that given day.
Obviously how useful that they’re going to be are dependant on how much you care about exercise, but at the very least, I like how well it presents this data to at least try and make you care, and I still feel that the way that the Pixel Watch tracks steps in comparison to other smart watches in real time is fantastic and actually keeps me motivated to go on longer walks.
The Google Pixel Watch 3 represents another step forward in the Pixel range, providing more versatility, but also feeling more premium and feature-complete just like the rest of the Pixel 9 line.