Google Pixel Watch 2022 – stylish and functional (review)

09/11/2022
By Ray Shaw
In Reviews

The Google Pixel Watch 2022 is a late entrant to the smartwatch category. In Google’s case, it has had plenty of time to learn from the early adopters and develop a damned good smartwatch. And as it does not work with iPhones – Apple users stop reading now.

There are two schools of thought regarding format – round or squarish. Round proponents cite that it looks watch-like, then Apple eschews round for a more ‘practical’ square design, allegedly to make better use of the screen real estate.

Oh, and OPPO makes the best Android Wear OS Apple square display knockoff – OPPO Watch – the best all-around Google Wear smartwatch (review). It is the one that I choose to wear.

In the final analysis, I don’t think it matters whether it is round or square. It is all about functionality (and every Wear OS watch does the same things), your style and your budget. Like Android has democratised smartphones with prices from $100 to whatever, Android Wear OS democratises the smartwatch market. This is vital as market penetration is still embryonic, as we have not yet adopted them as must-have items.

BTW Apple has about 30% of the global market share of units shipped (mainly due to China’s take-up), with Samsung at 10% (Wear OS and Western markets only). The battle for wrist supremacy is nowhere near hotting up – except that the Google Pixel Watch 2022 has thrown a serious challenge to all comers.

What should a Wear OS smartwatch do?

This assumes it is Bluetooth and or Wi-Fi paired to an Android smartphone. Some brands/models with an LTE eSIM can act alone (these cost more, and you need a Telco that supports number sharing). They come in two basic types – fitness orientated and watch replacements.

The majority buy for simple fitness tracking – heart rate and a step counter. Sure, you can get more fancy ones that may detect heart issues, blood oxygen levels, stress, and automatic exercise type recognition and tracking. Data is sent to Google Fit, Fitbit app or others for analysis, setting goals and, in some cases, gamification and peer scoreboards.
Sleep tracking was seen as an important feature but less so now
Notifications: Calendar, email, SMS on your wrist (when paired). It is difficult to respond on a small screen, so you invariably swap to the phone.
Answer calls, but the quality of the mic and speaker on some make that hard
Payment wallets like Google or Apple Pay using the watch’s NFC chip. But the inconvenience of having to enter a pin or swipe pattern to unlock the screen when you want to use it has put off many users
GPS/Maps – it has a GPS and can accurately map your movements, but so too can a phone. Maps are too small to be of use, but vocal prompts are good.
Music: Most have a Spotify client and limited on-watch storage, but the speaker is unsuitable for music. You can pair BT earbuds, but you can also do this on the phone.
Games: Playing more than Noughts and Crosses is a chore.
Fall detection, SOS: Nice features, but unless you have an LTE model, it needs to be paired to a smartphone. Our experience with LTE is that the phone signal strength is a fraction of the smartphone’s strength.
Oh, and finally, time and date, perhaps weather as well

Australian Review: Google Pixel Watch 2022

Price	$549 Bluetooth/Wi-Fi $649 4G LTE + Bluetooth/Wi-Fi
Manufacturer	Google
Product page	Here
Warranty	Two years
Country of manufacture	China
Storage and memory:	32GB + 2GB RAM
About	: Google is an American company most commonly known as a search engine. Although the company made its name as a search engine and most of its income comes from advertising, it has branched out into Made By Google Hardware.
More	CyberShack Google news and reviews

We use Fail (below expectations), Pass (meets expectations) and Exceed (surpasses expectations or is the class leader) against many of the items below. We occasionally give a Pass(able) rating that is not as good as it should be and a Pass ‘+’ rating to show it is good but does not quite make it to Exceed.

You can click on most images for an enlargement.

First impression

To some, it is classy, understated and minimalist, with many bands to dress it up. To others who have worn horological masterpieces in design, it is bland. I suspect the black silicon Active Watch band ($69) is more to do with this view. There are lots of other band colour choices in Google genuine Stretch ($89), woven ($80), crafted leather ($119), two-tone leather ($119) and thousands of third-party, lower-cost bands on Amazon, eBay, AliExpress etc.

It has a 41mm diameter case x 12.3m thick, and you can select from matte black, champagne gold, and polished silver cases. I think matte black looks best, but my wife prefers polished silver as she would be more likely to wear that out socially.

Anyway, you have a choice!

It has a prominent crown that acts as a power button and selector. It also has a side back button above the crown. But most work is done with the touch-sensitive screen.

Setup

Download the Google Pixel Watch App from Google Play. You can accept all default settings, but we advise you to consider the privacy implications of location and sending usage and diagnostic reports to Google. Also, if you are not using it for phone calls, you may not wish to give it access to contacts and call logs.

It asks you to download the Fitbit Today app to monitor your health data. The free version does an adequate job but does contain in-app purchases and needs a Fitbit account. Otherwise, it will integrate into Google’s free Fit app, and I recommend most users try that first.

Display

The AMOLED screen is 1.2” (30mm) circular in a 41mm body. It has a resolution of 450 x 450 pixels (320ppi) density. Google claims up to 1000 nits, but we cannot verify that. While it is a bright, colourful screen, it must be wound up to full brightness in direct sunlight. It is protected by Gorilla Glass 5. It is no surprise that it only has Dark Mode to save battery.

The AOD is a battery sapper; you best use tilt (your arm) and tap to wake setting instead.

Battery – 294mAh

The more you do with a smartwatch, the more battery it uses. More fully featured ones like the Google Pixel Watch 2022 and Samsung watches generally need a daily charge.

It is too early to tell you with any real accuracy how long a charge lasts. Over two weeks, it mostly goes 24 hours. But on some days – well, 6 hours was max (mainly GPS use).

Recharging with the USB-C magnetic dock is quick – 50% in 30 minutes and 100% in 80 minutes. Note that if you don’t have a spare USB-C port, you can buy an inexpensive USB-C to USB-A adapter. It will charge on any USB port with 5V/1A/5W or more.

It has above-average battery life, only impacted by heavy GPS (single band) and the Always-on screen feature.

Note that you cannot use a Qi charger or reverse charging. A spare mag charger dock is $49, plus you need a charger.

Apps

Most will never need to install Apps, but hundreds, if not thousands, are accessible via the watch Play Store.

BT/Wi-Fi and LTE options

If this is your first smartwatch, go for BT 5.0/Wi-Fi N 2.4GHz and once paired to your Android phone, the only useful feature you don’t get is making/receiving calls without the phone.

Features	Bluetooth/Wi-Fi	4G LTE
All-day activity tracking	✔	✔
Heart rate tracking	✔	✔
20+ exercise modes	✔	✔
Six months of Fitbit Premium included	✔	✔
Google Assistant	✔	✔
Fast Pair	✔	✔
Connect with wireless headphones	✔	✔
Google Wallet	✔	✔
Receive messages with your phone online	✔	✔
Play downloaded music	✔	✔
Stream music without your phone		✔
Receive calls and other notifications without your phone		✔
Make calls without your phone		✔

LTE needs a Telco carrier shared number – Telstra charges an extra $5 a month, but you must also have your smartphone on a Telstra plan. This shares your mobile phone number across the watch and phone.

We cannot test at present, but international reviews state that the phone signal strength is far worse than a smartphone, and it is only for city/suburbs use with strong cell signal coverage.

And we understand that LTE only supports Telstra bands 3, 7 and 8 (not 28)- you cannot use this on Optus or Vodafone.

Water Resistance

Google Pixel Watch 2022 complies with a water protection rating of 5 ATM, but it is not waterproof. Water resistance is not permanent and decreases or is lost over time due to normal wear and tear, repair, disassembly, or damage. It can be used in shallow water and should not be used for activities involving water at high velocity or high temperature.

In short, it is not for swimming or diving.

Google Assistant

Unlike a Google Smart speaker, this requires a specific voice match and linking to your mail, calendar and more. Understandably, it needs a voice match to stop others from abusing the service. It generally requires an internet connection.

Emergency SOS and fall detection

Australia does not support auto-dialling emergency numbers.

Emergency SOS requires precise location and 4G LTE or BT pairing to a nearby smartphone, a cell signal, and a manual 000 call initiation.

Fall Detection is coming later in 2022.

Fitbit App

Google own Fitbit, so, naturally, it would like to use the Fitbit app for health tracking. The standard App (no subscription) is adequate covering:

Steps	Steps today and progress toward your daily goal.
Floors	Floors climbed today, and progress toward your daily goal.
Distance	Distance covered today and progress toward your daily goal.
Calories burned	Distance covered today and progress toward your daily goal.
Active Zone Minutes	Active Zone Minutes and progress toward your daily goal.
Exercise	Number of days you met your exercise goal this week.
Hourly activity	The number of hours today you met your hourly activity goal.
Heart rate	Current heart rate and heart-rate zone.
Resting heart rate	Your resting heart rate. For more information,
Sleep	Sleep duration and sleep score.

The Premium App extends the basic app to cover analytics, wellness and more. It costs A$14.99 per month. You get a 6-month trial – don’t forget to cancel it if you do not need it.

For most basic users, Google Fit (free) is sufficient. Don’t succumb to Fitbit’s frequent nags to upgrade.

Wear OS 3.5

It is Android for watches and, as such, needs regular patching and updating. It supports three years of updates from October 2025.

CyberShack’s view – Google Pixel Watch 2022 has a head start

It has had time to learn from other entrants and is entering a now growing market.

This is a good smartwatch for those who need basic features and don’t want to pay more for subscription apps etc. But in saying that, it becomes one of the many Wear OS watches that all do pretty much the same thing. And forget the LTE version.

Its additional features are unlocked via the Fitbit Premium App at 14.99 per month/$129.99 per year. If you find value in that – great.

Features: 85

It has everything you need, with some more unlocked via the Fitbit premium App subscription

Value: 80

There are better value Wear OS watches

Performance: 80

Decent battery life and realistic health stat measurements

Ease of Use: 75

It loses points as it requires a paid App to unlock the additional feature

Design: 85

It is round (do you need a square?) and well made

https://youtu.be/aexc30BgRGk