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Category: best smartwatches

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  • I’ll buy the Pixel Watch 4 if Google changes this one feature

    Personally, the Google Pixel Watch 3 was the success story of 2024. In just three generations, Google debuted the Pixel Watch, a pretty terrible smartwatch, improved it massively for the Pixel Watch 2, and then perfected it with the Pixel Watch 3. And I’ll admit, it’s a comeback story I wasn’t expecting to see. Sure, I’d noticed the Pixel Watch 2 was pretty good, but at no point did I expect it to smash through the glass ceiling in my yearning heart marked “Only Samsung Galaxy Watches here”. But smash through it did, and through the shards of raining glass it rose, like an ascending angel.

    Alright, so I’m laying it on a little thick. But it’s important to note quite how desirable the Pixel Watch has become in the last year. I’m even considering giving up my own hard-earned cash in return for the Google Pixel Watch 4 when it releases later this year. Except, there’s one little issue I have with the Pixel Watches, and have had since the beginning. And until that one problem is changed, I can’t see myself buying the Pixel Watch 4, or any future Pixel Watch.

    Google, just drop the Fitbit subscription cost already

    Fitbit app on an Android phone, showing sleep tracking information.
    Joe Maring / Digital Trends

    That’s a strong statement, so I’m going to quickly caveat: Fitbit’s platform is solid. Great, even. I have no problems with how well Fitbit functions, and while I haven’t had the chance to play with a Fitbit product myself in the almost decade I’ve been writing about smarrtphones and smartwatches, I know that there’s rarely a bad word said about Fitbit’s ability to track health or exercise. Heck, when Google bought Fitbit in 2021, I hoped it would be the dawn of a new age for Fitbit, and the end of my most hated part of the Fitbit package. I am, of course, talking about the subscription cost.

    It rankles that the Pixel Watch, a premium smartwatch, is hampered with an additional subscription cost. I get why it used to exist — Fitbit wasn’t a small company by any means, but it needed additional, ongoing funds to keep it going. I haven’t looked it up, so I don’t know if it’s true or not, but it feels like it could be true. Pair that with the fact that Fitbits are dirt cheap, and you can justify it. Sure, it’s an ongoing subscription cost, but you offset that with a comparatively low entry cost and it’s more palatable.

    Google is not a small company struggling for funding, and the Pixel Watch 3 is not dirt cheap like Fitbit products are, so … why am I paying like both of those things are true? It reads as pure greed from Google, and it’s hard to see it as anything but.

    I want to recommend Pixel Watches and Fitbits, but I can’t

    A card stored in Google Wallet on the Fitbit Charge 6.
    Joe Maring / Digital Trends

    I’ve been writing about smartwatches for close to a decade now, and in all of that time, the subscription means I’ve never been able to recommend a Fitbit to friends and family — and that applies to the Pixel Watch too.

    If it was nothing more than a few extra exercise classes, perhaps an AI-generated report or two, like Apple Fitness Plus, then I wouldn’t be so annoyed. But no, if you want a Sleep Score or Daily Readiness Score, then you’ll need to pay Google — one of the world’s biggest companies — $10 a month to do so. And it rankles even more because the competition just isn’t doing it. If I strap on a Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 it doesn’t nickle and dime me for my sleep tracking, and the Apple Watch Series 10 doesn’t shake a donations tin before I’m allowed to see what my energy levels are. Because it’s part of the service and Apple and Samsung get that. Google still doesn’t, and it’s a big barrier.

    Yes, it annoyed me when Garmin introduced a subscription, but unlike Fitbit, Garmin hasn’t hidden anything that feels like a standard inclusion. Instead it’s just adding extra stuff, and I can live with that. Can I live without a Sleep Score or Daily Readiness? Sure, I’ll survive, but will I thrive?

    Google doesn’t even have to do much to change this. All it needs to say is “and because the Pixel Watch 4 is a premium product, it’ll get these features from Fitbit Premium for free”. That’s all it needs to do, and I’m on board. But until then? I’ll lust after the Pixel Watch 4, but I’m sure not buying one.

  • What we want to see from the Google Pixel Watch 4

    Has there ever been such a quickly improved product as the Pixel Watch? Google’s first attempt wasn’t great, but the Pixel Watch 2 was much better, and the Google Pixel Watch 3 was, frankly, excellent. So it’s safe to say there’s a lot of expectation riding on the Pixel Watch 4. Will it be a showstopper like the Pixel Watch 3? Or will Google come full circle and release another duffer, like the first Pixel Watch.

    Here’s where you’ll find all the latest leaks and rumors surrounding the Pixel Watch 4. However, since we don’t have too many of those yet, we’ve also included a list of everything we’d like to see from the newest Pixel Watch.

    Google Pixel Watch 4: Release and price

    We haven’t seen any leaks pertaining to either of these yet, but it’s safe to assume the Pixel Watch 4 will arrive in the fall of 2025, and while a price rise isn’t our of the question, we haven’t seen anything to indicate Google will be putting prices up.

    Google Pixel Watch 4: design and charging

    We don’t have a lot of leaks for the Google Pixel Watch 4 yet, but what we do have suggests that not a lot will be changing in Google-land for the fourth Pixel Watch. According to leaks from OnLeaks and 91Mobiles, the Pixel Watch 4 will sport the same iconic round look, albeit with slightly smaller bezels around the display. The Pixel Watch 3 had reduced the larger bezels we’d seen on previous models, and it’s impressive that Google is further shrinking them down.

    There are bigger changes around the back, with the biggest change being what’s missing. While the four sensors are still in place on the back of the device, there are no charging pins, potentially indicating that Google will be moving to wireless charging for the Pixel Watch 4. This isn’t a seachange by any means, as we’ve seen similar charging methods on the Samsung Galaxy Watch 7, but it is a nice addition.

    Google Pixel Watch 4: What we want to see

    The Pixel Watch 3 was a very good smartwatch, but it wasn’t perfect by any means. Here’s a brief list of improvements we’d like to see in the Pixel Watch 4.

    An even longer battery life

    The OnePlus Watch 3 seen from the top.
    Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

    The Pixel Watch 3’s battery lif was pretty good by smartwatch standards, lasting around a day-and-a-half on a single charge. But we’ve seen a lot better recently, most distinctly from the OnePlus Watch 3. OnePlus’s smartwatch was capable of lasting multiple days on one charge, above and beyond pretty much every other smartwatch around.

    Could the Pixel Watch match this performance? It’s entirely possible it won’t, but it shows that smartwatches can and should do better. The Pixel Watch 3 did well in terms of battery life, but we’re hoping the Pixel Watch 4 will knock it out of the park.

    Fewer features locked behind the Fitbit paywall

    A demonstration of the new running features for the Google Pixel Watch 3 in the Fitbit app.
    Joe Maring / Digital Trends

    Google’s purchase of Fitbit meant that it had a ready-built fitness platform for its smartwatches, and the Pixel Watch has become the most premium way to experience Fitbit’s excellent exercise and health tracking. Only, it doesn’t feel very premium, entirely because you still have to pay a subscription for Fitbit’s best features.

    The pill is sugared a bit by the six months of free access to Fitbit Premium you get for buying the watch, but when you’re paying premium smartwatch prices, to not get premium features feels like you’re being cheated just a little bit. The Pixel Watch 4 is a premium smartwatch, and it needs to drop the subscription if it wants to continue to be seen as such.

    Upgrade the smallest size

    The Pixel Watch 3 finally introduced a second, larger size to the roster, and it’s fantastic. Only, now the 41mm size needs looking at, because, frankly speaking, it’s just too small.

    Previous Mobile Editor Joe Maring loved the Pixel Watch 3, and didn’t have many negative thoughts about the smartwatch — but he did note that, even for his small wrists, the 41mm Pixel Watch 3 felt too small. And it’s easy to say why he’d think that; the Pixel Watch’s sleek and smooth design is iconic for the Google brand, but it makes a small watch feel even smaller, and that’s a problem when you’re shipping an already small watch. Apple offers its smallest Apple Watch Series 10 in a 42mm size, and it’s time that Google did the same with the Pixel Watch 4.

    Better durability or better repairability

    The back of the Google Pixel Watch 3.
    Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

    The Pixel Watch 3 had all the usual durabilities you’d expect for a smartwatch, including swimmable water-resistance, but it was certainly scratch-prone, especially on the rear. Plus, that model had some terrible reports where repairability was concerned, meaning you were largely unable to replace that back panel if it became unsightly with scratches.

    Granted, this isn’t a huge deal, but it’s one we’d still like to see Google iron out. A slightly tougher back panel would work wonders for Google’s Pixel Watch 4, but so would a dedication to repairability.

  • The new Pebble is the throwback smartwatch we need right now

    Pebble is back and I couldn’t be happier. The smartwatch brand that pre-dated the Apple Watch by a number of years has made a dramatic return under the name “Core Devices”, and it’s clear to me that these are, so far, the most important wearables of 2025.

    But that’s not because the two devices on offer, the Core 2 Duo and Core Time 2, are sitting at the peak of technological achievement. No, they’re built from old Pebble parts, with e-paper displays, an old fashioned square design, and the ancient PebbleOS. In comparison to most of the best smartwatches, they’re positively prehistoric. You may then assume they’re bad smartwatches to buy, as my colleague Andy Boxall believes — but nothing could be further from the truth. These renamed Core Device smartwatches are the retro throwbacks we all need right now.

    The Pebble doesn’t try to replace your phone

    Recently, I spent some time wearing a normal “dumb” watch, and it made something very clear to me — the “smart” part of smartwatches really isn’t all that smart.

    Manufacturers have been adding a lot to smartwatches in recent years, and to some extent, it’s meant that we’ve collectively forgotten a key fact about smartwatches — that the “smart” part is not more important than the “watch” part.

    If you’re anything like me, you spend the first week with your smartwatch using the absolute monkeys out of it. You install a bunch of apps you’ll never use, download Spotify playlists you’ll never listen to, and spend an hour digging through the Settings app, finetuning everything about your watch. Then you … stop using it for anything other than the time and notifications. It’s a cycle I’ve personally repeated time and time again, and it’s a big part of the reason I, and so many others, consistently find myself going back to fitness trackers rather than smartwatches.

    Because, ultimately, a smartwatch isn’t a replacement for a smartphone. No matter how many apps you install on it, no matter how good you get with a teeny-weeny keyboard, no matter how often you answer calls with it, you’re always going to eventually reach for your phone.

    A smartwatch isn’t a replacement. It’s a go-between. A complement. The ideal form of the smartwatch is a device that lets you keep tabs on what’s going on, without needing to dig out your phone. And that’s exactly what these new Pebble watches offer. While you’ll be able to reply to notifications with the new Core Devices watches, it’s never going to be the focus. Instead, it’s a way to judge if a notification is important enough to get your phone out or not.

    In fact, in a lot of ways, the Pebble approach to smartwatches is now more relevant than ever, because a more retro approach to smart tech is becoming more fashionable.

    The old is new again

    The Pebble do-over is coming at a time when younger generations are exploring the tech of yesteryear. Despite essentially going defunct last decade, wired headphones are making a comeback. While some will point out that wired headphones have better clarity and quality than wireless headphones, it’s less that young people have all suddenly become audiophiles, and more that they’re doing what young people have always done — reject the status quo.

    The new Pebble devices are perfectly placed to take advantage of this new trend. After all, what’s more mainstream than the Apple Watch-style of smartwatch? The Core Devices Pebbles exist as far to the antithesis of the Apple Watch Series 10 as it’s possible to be while still being a smartwatch. It embraces the tech of yesteryear, putting it perfectly in line with a growing fondness for the retro tech chic of the 2010s. PebbleOS has an inherently old-fashioned look about it, but it’s still connected enough to modern tech to be useful. It’s the perfect hybrid between the old and the new, and that gives it value.

    Back in their day, Pebble devices fell behind other smartwatches pretty rapidly. But now, that retro style and approach is an advantage.

    Reject smart, embrace the watch

    The Core Time 2 on a blue background.
    Core Devices

    I’m not here to make the case that these new rebooted Pebbles are going to set the smartwatch market on fire, because that’s extremely unlikely. Even with my rose-tinted love for the Pebble Steel, I can see the new Pebbles, no matter what they’re called, aren’t a real match for most modern smartwatches. Their designs are old school, their e-ink displays are leagues from the OLED displays on most smartwatches, and the complete lack of fitness tracking shuts them out from a sizeable portion of the market.

    But no matter how much I know that to be true, I can’t stop myself from wanting one. Why? Because underneath all of that, these new PebbleOS devices are incredible, effortlessly cool. They reject everything that’s come to define the modern smartwatch. “Smart” has always come before “watch” in the current era of wearables, and it’s about time we looked at a device that’s not afraid to embrace being less smart, and more of a watch. The Core 2 Duo and Core Time 2 hark back to the days when a smartwatch wasn’t trying so hard to be a mini-smartphone. Instead, they’re not afraid to be what they always should have been — watches, with a touch of smart magic.