Google is holding its annual hardware launch event two months early this year, on August 13. Along with the Pixel 9 family (which will be more numerous than ever), the Pixel Watch 3 is also expected to be unveiled on that occasion. For the first time, the Pixel Watch will come in two sizes - this has already been confirmed by the FCC. Today a new leak sheds light on more details, allegedly coming from a source inside Google. The Pixel Watch 3 is said to use the Snapdragon W5 SoC paired with a custom co-processor.
The 41mm Watch 3 gets a 310 mAh battery,
while the 45mm model will have a 420 mAh cell for hopefully better battery
life. The smaller Watch 3 has a 32x32 mm display size (up from 30x30 mm on the
Pixel Watch 2), the bigger one has a 36x36 mm display size, and the resolution
is 408x408 and 456x456, respectively.
While the overall design will remain
unchanged from the original Pixel Watch and the Pixel Watch 2, the screen
bezels will finally be slightly smaller. According to this source, Google will
trim one full millimeter off the circular bezel, taking it from 5.5mm on the
Pixel Watch 2 to 4.5mm on the Pixel Watch 3.
That's still a lot of bezel, but it's also
(small) progress. Furthermore, the new watch will have improved screen
brightness too, with a peak of 2,000 nits. That's much more than the 1,000 nits
of the Pixel Watch 2. We refrain from saying it's "double the
brightness" because the perceived brightness doesn't follow a linear scale
so chances are it won't look twice as bright in person. Still, this is another
good step forward.
The Pixel Watch 3 will have UWB support,
as already confirmed by the FCC, and this will enable precise device finding in
conjunction with Google's Find My Device system. This could in theory also be
used to make your Pixel Watch 3 into a car key, if car brands will be open to
the idea - BMW, Hyundai, and Kia already support UWB for this purpose but they
have to also support the Pixel Watch 3 specifically, so we'll see how it goes.
The 41mm Pixel Watch 3 will be offered in
silver, black, and gold case colors with different colored bands. The 45mm
model will have its case in Hazel, black, and silver.