Google revealed its first ever smartwatch earlier last year and while the watch was appreciated by many, it had its own weak points, such as the terrible battery life. However, Google seems to be planning to fix a bunch of Pixel Watch issues with the Pixel Watch 2, as a leak now claims to have revealed the key specifications of the wearable including the chipset, software and more.
A leak from early May revealed that Pixel Watch 2 is coming this fall, alongside the Pixel 8 series. Moreover, the report claimed that Samsung’s Exynos 9110 SoC, which debuted back in 2018 with the Galaxy Watch, is expected to power the wearable.
However, a new report from the same publication now says that the Pixel Watch 2 will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset from the latest “W5” generation, according to sources with knowledge of the matter. For those unaware, Qualcomm unveiled the Snapdragon W5+ Gen 1 last year and the first watch to come with this chip is the TicWatch Pro 5.
The Pixel Watch 2 could also be powered by this same chipset, enabling a big leap in terms of power, when compared to the first generation of Google’s watch. A direct effect of this change will be seen on battery life of the watch, which would apparently be much improved from last year’s wearable. “Google is seeing over a day of usage with the always-on display (AOD) enabled”, said the report.
The report adds that this improvement could allow for a longer usage time even with AOD ON and could even let people use it for more than a day with battery saving measures in place. Set to arrive in the fall, the Pixel Watch 2 is presumably one of the first devices to launch with the recently announced Wear OS 4. The new software update for wearables also brings improvements across the board, including efficiency gains.
Lastly, the publication’s sources say that the Pixel Watch 2 has similar health Sensors to the Fitbit Sense 2. This means it could have a continuous electrodermal activity (cEDA) sensor for all-day stress management and tracking, as well as a skin temperature sensor.