With a guaranteed update policy for five years for its Pixel smartphones, Google ensures that its hardware will not suffer from security breaches during this period. It also promises up to three years of major updates so that its smartphones continue to benefit from new versions of Android.
We were therefore entitled to expect similar treatment for its first Pixel watch. This one will unfortunately be less well off, Google only promising three years of updates, bringing support for the Pixel Watch until October 2025.
With its Pixel Watch under Wear OS, Google does not get too wet. Although three years guaranteed in principle provide good support to take advantage of regular improvements, you should not expect to enjoy the finest new features after this period, nor even security updates if Google decides not to not prolong its support. That doesn’t mean the Pixel Watch will be outdated in three years, but compared to the Apple Watch, whose Series 4 still benefits from new versions of watchOS four years after their release, it’s a small disappointment. Google could, however, extend the update time if it believes that future versions of its Wear OS system will be able to run correctly on its first-generation Pixel Watch. But nothing guarantees it, therefore.
It should also be remembered that the Pixel Watch begins its career with a certain handicap, since it is powered by an old Exynos 9110 chip dating from 2018. Chip that was already found in Samsung’s first Galaxy Watch and that the latter has since replaced by the more powerful Exynos W920 with the fineness of engraving divided by two (5 nm). Although the Exynos 9110 today seems to provide sufficient performance for the Pixel Watch, according to what we were able to observe during our first hands-on, nothing says that it will still be fast enough to support a version of Wear OS that would be released in 2026, for example.
Note that not all watch manufacturers commit to an update period. Samsung goes so far as to promise four years of support, but Huawei, Xiaomi or even Garmin remain vague on the issue. We can only hope to see Google provide long and quality support for its first connected watch, which could make the difference in an already crowded market, in the face of competing watches whose follow-up is sometimes uncertain.