Google Pixel Watch might include Tensor co-processor, 2GB RAM and 32GB storage.

[Senzelian]

Summary

Really quick and simple news, but interesting for everyone that was interested in the Google Pixel Watch.
According to rumors or leaks?, (unfortunately the linked articles aren't citing any sources), the upcoming Pixel Watch will come with a Google Tensor co-processor, more than 1,5GB RAM (likely 2GB) and 32GB of storage.

 

Previously the Pixel Watch was rumored to only feature a Samsung Exynos 9110, which was disappointing to many users, as this is now an aging CPU from 2018. With the help of a Tensor co-processor the age of the Exynos CPU might not be nearly as much of an issue as it seemed.

 

 

 

Quotes

Quote

Google soll zwar mehr RAM als andere Modelle mit Wear OS verbaut haben (wohl 2 GB) und es gibt auch einen neuen Co-Prozessor von Google [...]

Translation: Google will likely offer more RAM than other Wear OS devices (apparently 2GB) and there will be a new Co-Processor from Google [...]

 

Quote

Es gibt noch weitere Informationen zur Ausstattung: So soll Google der Pixel Watch ganze 32 GB Hauptspeicher mit auf den Weg geben [...]

Translation: There's more information regarding specs: Google will likely give the Pixel Watch 32GB of RAM [...]

 

 

 

My thoughts

Seems like Google put a little more effort into the Watch than previously assumed. Let's hope that the additional specs will work in its favor and Google can create a truly exceptopnal watch that can keep up with the performance of its competitors, while offering the outstanding software experience that we're looking for.

 

 

 

Sources

https://www.googlewatchblog.de/2022/05/pixel-watch-neuer-leak/

https://www.mobiflip.de/shortnews/google-pixel-watch-neue-details/

(Sources are unfortunately in German.)

[goodtofufriday]

I think the most important question is will it work with google fi. At current fi does not support smart watches. 

[Not_A_Spider]

2 hours ago, goodtofufriday said:

I think the most important question is will it work with google fi.

The most most important question is if it will work at all, because all other smartwatches except apple's are janky, low framerate, inconsistent shit strapped to your wrist.

[cmndr]

How much CPU power do you need to display a time and to monitor a gyroscope for when I "climb 52 flights of stairs" with my girlfriend in my bedroom?

[Cyberspirit]

35 minutes ago, cmndr said:

How much CPU power do you need to display a time and to monitor a gyroscope for when I "climb 52 flights of stairs" with my girlfriend in my bedroom?

Probably not all too much but sending all that data might be a bit more resource heavy. /s

[GhostRoadieBL]

4 hours ago, Not_A_Spider said:

The most most important question is if it will work at all, because all other smartwatches except apple's are janky, low framerate, inconsistent shit strapped to your wrist.

I've actually been impressed with the low $ ones over the more expensive watches being shown.

Currently the amazfit band 5 has done everything I want from a smart watch.

 

It is accurate with heartrate and step tracking, displays notifications, controls my music so I don't have to pull out my phone. I can't think of anything else I really want my watch to do, maybe send quick responses to emails and texts but most of my messages require more than a few words to respond.

 

[Senzelian]

13 hours ago, Not_A_Spider said:

because all other smartwatches except apple's are janky, low framerate, inconsistent shit strapped to your wrist

Anyone that ever used a couple of different smartwatches knows that the whole "all Android smartwatches suck" argument is complete bs.

Same goes for Android tablets. Unfortunately Linus made too many users believe that this is actually true.

[Kisai]

12 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

Anyone that ever used a couple of different smartwatches knows that the whole "all Android smartwatches suck" argument is complete bs.

Same goes for Android tablets. Unfortunately Linus made too made users believe that this is actually true.

Correct.  All smartwatches suck. No debate. /s

 

In all seriousness, the tensor co-processor is probably intended for something (eg ASR) and would make it a bit more like a star trek com badge and tricorder. With that said, fitness trackers, smartwatches do disappoint greatly, but mostly in battery life. A Fitbit and a Garmin fitness tracker or smartwatch will last like 5 days, but an Apple one? 2 days tops. 

 

 

[Doobeedoo]

I still see 0 reasons why I would get a smartwatch.

[Senzelian]

48 minutes ago, Doobeedoo said:

I still see 0 reasons why I would get a smartwatch.

While I know why you wrote this, I have to say that I kinda agree, even tho I own a smartwatch.

There aren't really any "good" reason to get a smartwatch. It is a waste of ressources to be honest. But it is also just kinda cool and neat. If you don't find that to be enough of a reason to get a smartwatch, then yeah, fair enough. 

[Doobeedoo]

4 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

While I know why you wrote this, I have to say that I kinda agree, even tho I own a smartwatch.

There aren't really any "good" reason to get a smartwatch. It is a waste of ressources to be honest. But it is also just kinda cool and neat. If you don't find that to be enough of a reason to get a smartwatch, then yeah, fair enough. 

Only reason I would want one in future is blood sugar sensor measure. But who knows when that will come.

[Senzelian]

2 minutes ago, Doobeedoo said:

Only reason I would want one in future is blood sugar sensor measure. But who knows when that will come.

https://www.healthline.com/diabetesmine/wrist-smartwatches-and-diabetes-tech

 

Edit. Haven't actually read the article. Might be about something else. But this was just published a few weeks ago.

[Doobeedoo]

11 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

https://www.healthline.com/diabetesmine/wrist-smartwatches-and-diabetes-tech

 

Edit. Haven't actually read the article. Might be about something else. But this was just published a few weeks ago.

Yeah I've seen something about it. Like having specific device that monitors and beams data to watch. Though as I am aware no commercial smartwatch that does it soloy non invasive. I've read that maybe we will see them hit the market in few yeara Apple and Android too.

[Senzelian]

54 minutes ago, Doobeedoo said:

Though as I am aware no commercial smartwatch that does it soloy non invasive.

Yeah that's what I thought. But to be honest I wouldn't trust a device doing that accurately without a sample of your blood. It might be possible to get it very close to 100% accurate, but with actual health related issues I wouldn't want to play around. It's the same thing with other health tracking stats. 

[HomeBoi]

I am so confused, it seems they are still going to keep fitbit brand alive and still sell those alongside the google watch. Why? I would think they would incorporate the fitbit tech into the new watch and call it something fitbit with a google certification or something..

 

Also why would i need so much processing power and memory in my watch, like i just want ~7 days battery life, color screen and some trackers that don't suck, how come that is so hard...

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, Doobeedoo said:

I still see 0 reasons why I would get a smartwatch.

I think smartwatches are pretty neat. Sure, it depends on your use case but here is what I use mine for:

1) Fitness tracking. For example I like jogging, and having the watch to quickly look at to see distance, time and phase is great. Also collects some other fun info like heart rate, elevation etc.

2) Approve of 2-factor authentication. I have to use Microsoft's authenticator like 15-20 times a day, and being able to just click approve on my watch rather than take up my phone, go into the notifications and then click approve makes the whole thing way smoother.

3) Being able to quickly see who is calling, or what notification you got, without having to pull my phone out of my pocket or bag.

 

 

Then there are some other fun stuff like monitor how much I sleep and such.

Is it worth the price of most smartwatches? Absolutely not. I got my Galaxy Watch active for 100 dollars and I thought that was somewhat steep for what I use it for. I couldn't imagine spending 300 to 400 dollars on one.

The battery life is awful as well, and I could probably get a better experience with a fitness tracking like a Garmin. It's not like I use a lot of apps anyway.

[Senzelian]

2 minutes ago, HomeBoi said:

I am so confused, it seems they are still going to keep fitbit brand alive and still sell those alongside the google watch. Why? I would think they would incorporate the fitbit tech into the new watch and call it something fitbit with a google certification or something..

 

Also why would i need so much processing power and memory in my watch, like i just want ~7 days battery life, color screen and some trackers that don't suck, how come that is so hard...

Yes, Google will keep Fitbit. I assume this is because of brand recognition. A lot of customers are simply more familiar with Fitbit than with Google and so it would only hurt their sales to rename the Fitbit devices.

The Google Pixel Watch will actually incorporate functions of Fitbit health trackers. Which ones those are is yet to be announced. It might just be exactly what you're hoping for.

 

The reason to have so much processing power, might just be exactly for battery life. More efficient co-processors can take care of functions that don't require the larger Exynos processor. The additional storage and RAM can help with standby time.

 

7 Days of battery life isn't hard, it's impossible. I know, sounds silly considering there are already smartwatches out there, that offer that, but it's important to know how they achieve that. It's usually done with the help of monochrome e-ink displays or by disabling the AOD entirely. A fully featured smartwatch will not be able to achieve 7 days of battery life without a drastic re-design in battery tech or with giant improvements in processing efficiency.

[HomeBoi]

18 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

Yes, Google will keep Fitbit. I assume this is because of brand recognition. A lot of customers are simply more familiar with Fitbit than with Google and so it would only hurt their sales to rename the Fitbit devices.

The Google Pixel Watch will actually incorporate functions of Fitbit health trackers. Which ones those are is yet to be announced. It might just be exactly what you're hoping for.

 

The reason to have so much processing power, might just be exactly for battery life. More efficient co-processors can take care of functions that don't require the larger Exynos processor. The additional storage and RAM can help with standby time.

 

7 Days of battery life isn't hard, it's impossible. I know, sounds silly considering there are already smartwatches out there, that offer that, but it's important to know how they achieve that. It's usually done with the help of monochrome e-ink displays or by disabling the AOD entirely. A fully featured smartwatch will not be able to achieve 7 days of battery life without a drastic re-design in battery tech or with giant improvements in processing efficiency.

To be honest, I am not looking for a "smart" watch as they call them, I just want a better Fitbit sense with the same battery life. I have not checked out the functionality on the Huawei bands/watches but they are dominating in battery life so it should not be impossible probably. I think the development is moving towards more powerful devices that can do more on our wrists, and I am not really sure that is what I want. There are some shitty companies out there making those smartphone-sized screens that go on your wrist, and to be honest I'd rather go for that version than have both a watch and a phone for it to work.

 

 

Just to add in, I like what you say about things and the rebranding thing I was thinking of myself, it's just a bit out of character of google to actually think of such things instead of just buying a brand and killing it by renaming.

[Senzelian]

2 minutes ago, HomeBoi said:

Just to add in, I like what you say about things and the rebranding thing I was thinking of myself, it's just a bit out of character of google to actually think of such things instead of just buying a brand and killing it by renaming.

Yeah I guess that's true  

 

2 minutes ago, HomeBoi said:

I just want a better Fitbit sense with the same battery life.

I haven't checked current fitbit offerings, cause I'm not into fitness at all, but don't they have decent trackers that could replace yours?

[HomeBoi]

I already have the Fitbit Sense, which has 5 days ish of battery life. They don't plan to release an upgrade to that one until next year probably so I'm eagerly awaiting leaks/news of Sense 2

 

I don't use it mainly for fitness since all fitness trackers are horrendous at giving you actual detailed stats, but they are a nice kick in the butt for moving a bit more and having some general stats to track over time. Since average over time is somewhat accurate, also just generally tracking workouts and sleep patterns has just become a side hobby.

[DrMacintosh]

On 5/23/2022 at 3:30 PM, cmndr said:

How much CPU power do you need to display a time and to monitor a gyroscope 

Apple says there’s a “2 second rule”. If it takes longer than 2s to perform any interaction with your watch, users will just not use it and will probably hate the device. So you actually need quite a bit of power. 
 

The baseline in my opinion is the Apple Watch SE which has 2 Cores, 1GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage. Granted, those two cores are the Apple S5 and are pretty performant. 

[Fnige]

14 hours ago, Doobeedoo said:

I still see 0 reasons why I would get a smartwatch.

Honestly there isn't like a big big reason for having a smartwatch over a normal watch and instead just a bunch of small reasons. Like calling from your watch or alarms actually being more noticeable (A watch vibrating on your arm is much more noticeable than a phone screaming at you. trust me).

 

Its nice to have personally but I wouldn't really recommend it

[Obioban]

There's no real killer app for my Apple watch, but the sum of the benefits is great.

 

-In the morning, my wife and I will often use them for silent (vibration) alarms, so we don't wake each other up.

-When I go for a run, having nav and music and fitness monitoring all on my watch (and phone functionality if I should need it) is hugely better than bringing my phone with me.

-I always Apple Pay with my watch for everything, because it's a nicer experience than getting the phone out.

-viewing notifications without taking your phone out is super nice (once you manage them down to things you actually want to see)

-having the next event on my calendar on my watch makes it much less likely I will miss things.

-it's my go to two factor device for pretty much everything

-I use timers and reminders on it all the time, just because it's more convenient.

-if I'm outside the house without a key, etc, it's nice to be able to do things like unlock doors, open garage doors, turn on the spot lights, etc.

-all of my doorlocks use homekey, so unlocking the how is just putting the watch near them. Could be done with a phone, but nicer with the watch

-allowed my phone to unlock with faceID and a mask on my face

-I'll often use the voice memos function to get an audio recording of something I don't necessarily want other people to realize I'm recording. Could do this with a phone, but the watch is naturally in a better place to get audio

-glancing down and seeing the current weather/high/low is surprisingly useful

-it gathers a done of heath data for the health app, so I can graph things like how my aerobic fitness changes over time.

-I run the decibel meter 100% of the time-- and if volumes get into the hearing damage range, stick my airpods pro in, in sound canceling mode.

 

And benefits I get from other people in my family:

-if my elderly parents falls, it'll automatically call the police and notify me (and give me their location, through family sharing)

-I can find my daughter's location, and contact her if necessary, without giving her a phone yet (not old enough)

 

None of those in isolation are "worth it", but combined I find it to be a VERY compelling product.

 

... I'm looking forward to getting cars that support using it as a carkey, so I can stop carrying all keys.