Blog

Google may debut its own smartwatch in 2022

In recently, Google is making its own in-house smart-watch that’s set to launch by 2022. While Google has made its own smart-phones for years under the Pixel line (which has since extended to other accessories such as wireless headphones), the company has never designed its own smart-watch,despite the fact that Google has had companion wearable platform for Android since 2014.   Interestingly, the Pixel team isn’t working with Fitbit on this, even though Google acquired Fitbit in 2021.

The watch (codenamed “Rohan”) is based on the Google’s Pixel hardware group separately from Fitbit, which Google bought for up to 2.1 billion earlier in recent. The new upcoming Google watch – it isn’t clear whether Google will actually be calling it “Pixel Watch” yet, will serve much the same role as the Pixel phones do for Android: an instance for both consumers and hardware partners of what Google’s software is truly capable for when given the right hardware. The device is expected to cost more than a Fitbit or compete more directly with the Apple Watch.

The watch will have basic fitness tracking features such as step counting and heart rate monitor, with Google also reportedly working on debuting for the Fitbit integration into Wear OS (codenamed - Nightlight) with the new watch when it launches. Currently, Google is in the middle of the latest reinvention for the smart-watch platform with Wear OS 3. Unlike the earlier versions for Wear OS (Android Wear), Wear OS 3 was developed for the partnership with Samsung, merging the Tizen platform into Google’s own. But so far, Wear OS 3 has only launched on Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4, which runs for heavily customized version for the new operating system that eschews most of Google’s services and apps for Samsung’s own.

The current prototype of the watch needs to be charged for everyday and the charging speeds are nothing to write home about either. The final retail unit could also have these drawbacks, which should not be surprising since almost all smart-watches in the market currently only offer one-day battery life. Like the Apple Watch, Google's upcoming watch could also feature proprietary watch bands. Google aims to ensure that the watch is comfortable to wear for up to 90% of the population. Google aims to use the smart-watch to set a standard for other Wear OS watches to follow, just like it does with the Pixel lineup, though it is unclear if it plans to market the watch under the Pixel brand or not. The LG Watch Sport or LG Watch Style, released in 2017, were originally supposed to be marketed as part of the Pixel brand, but an employee told Insider that Google hardware boss Rick Osterloh axed the idea because they did not look like what belonged in the Pixel family. Both devices did not impress us when they came out.