Pixel Watch 3 review: a severely OK upgrade

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The Pixel Watch 3 in White, strapped to a male hand.

Pixel Watch 3 Intro

Third time's the charm

The Pixel Watch 3 is Google's third generation smartwatch device in the Pixel line-up. This time around, the smartwatch isn't as much about reinvention or major OS overhauls, but rather about a series of new features and subtle refinements, meant to give you a better overall experience. 

And you are right: the same could very well be said about the Pixel Watch 2. So what makes the third one different? Well, for starters: the watch is finally offered in two sizes: 41 and 45mm, so folks with bigger hands — like me — can fit it more easily in their style. It also features a dual-chip design, which we'll talk about more in a minute, but in short: it's meant to improve performance and battery life. Emphasis on "meant to", but I digress.

Well, that being said: one absolutely seamless pairing session later and we're off to my review of the Pixel Watch 3. And for the record, I plan to take this thing off only for charging. 


What’s new:

  • Finally, a bigger 45mm size makes a debut alongside the previously available 41mm option
  • An all-new dual-chip architecture that makes the watch more capable while not compromising battery life
  • The stunning Actua display, capable of going from 1 nit of brightness all the way up to 2000 in the blink of an eye
  • An extensive, if expected, suite of workout tracking options, courtesy of Fitbit
  • Some brand new features, including some previously exclusive to Fitbit Premium
  • Sweet Pixel-exclusive functions that, while not exciting, could be helpful
  • Digital Key capabilities, which sound promising, but we didn't get to test out

Table of Contents:

Pixel Specs, Models and Prices

Truly, upgrades worth appreciating

In total, the Pixel Watch 3 is available in four variants: two size options, as mentioned above, and for each of those, you'll get to choose between a WiFi only, and WiFi and LTE model. For the record, our review unit was a non-LTE option in a 45mm size. 

The only other difference between the two options, beyond the obvious size and weight, is battery size. That being said, battery life isn't really meant to differ between the two. 


So, did you catch how there are two CPUs listed in the slot above? Well, that is not an error, nor is it yet another deviancy between the two size options. The Pixel Watch 3 has two processors built-in, which is what that aforementioned Dual-Chip architecture is all about. But let's simplify it to human: the bigger CPU takes care of the intense stuff, while the smaller one ensures that all necessary background tasks keep running properly. 

The purpose of this unique, if not exactly innovative, architecture is simple: the smaller CPU is more efficient. This means that when you are not actively engaging with your watch, the Pixel Watch 3 can rely almost entirely on the smaller chip and save you a bit of battery. This sounds like exactly the type of innovation that a smartwatch can take advantage of, but spoilers: it doesn't make as big of an impact as I feel it should have made. 

Beyond that, I wouldn't really be able to forgive myself if I didn't highlight the display here: folks, it's amazing. It's bright, vibrant, but more importantly: it can go dark and comfy. I never had issues with visibility, regardless if I was catching a notification in the sun or checking the time at night, after having randomly awaken from sleep.

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Pixel Watch 3 Design, Sizes and Bands

A looker, but certainly not universal

It is no secret that the Pixel Watch line consists of some of the most unique-looking smartwatches on the market. The Pixel Watch 3, in particular, doesn't change much, but the Actua display, combined with the bezel design, often made me feel as if I was navigating through holograms.

The issue? Well, we're not exactly living in the Citadel from Mass Effect yet, so this super-futuristic design doesn't blend well with every outfit or occasion. For example, while reviewing the Pixel Watch 3, I had a night out and decided to dress fancier than usual. But the watch, with its space-era design and silicone band didn't vibe at all with my style. And Google's selection of modernistic watch faces didn't help much in that regard either. 

Typically, when faced with such a challenge, I have an easy way out: my collection of third-party smartwatch faces on Facer and my drawer, filled with non-proprietary watchbands of all sorts of colors and materials. This time around, however, my armaments didn't help much, as the Pixel Watch 3 uses a proprietary watch band system and is not compatible with Facer. 

So, in essence, my only other out was spending more on new watch faces, which will remain exclusive to the Pixel Watch 3 and paying extra to Google-enabled brands that make bands, specifically compatible with the Pixel Watch 3... Or I could just wear a long sleeve. Which kind of beats the purpose of owning a cutting-edge awesome smart-accessory, if you ask me. 

Image credit — PhoneArena

But it isn't all doom and gloom: when I equipped the smartwatch, I could barely feel it and I mean that in the best way possible. The band that the Pixel Watch 3 comes with is very comfortable and combined with the watch's pebble-shaped body, the experience was practically unrivalled. And it is really great of Google to include two sets of bands with each watch, as to make the Pixel Watch 3 a comfortable fit for people with both bigger and smaller hands. 

While I stand firm on my statement about the Pixel Watch 3's watch face designs, I must clarify: on their own, they are a masterclass in minimal, modern design. The amount of information that Google has managed to cram in some of these is astounding. You do also get minimal customization options regarding what metrics are displayed on which dial and the general color scheme, but that's about it. 

I've got to be honest about something else as well: there is a reason why most manufacturers opt out of making smartwatches — or watches in general — with such a prominent quantity of glass around the edges. Those are the bits that typically get stuck and struck by objects while you go through your day to day activities. If you are set on getting a Pixel Watch 3 and you hate getting scuffs and scratches, then you should know that those are practically unavoidable. Heck, I scratched mine a bit while asleep and I can't be held accountable for what my body does while I am literally not conscious. 

Yes, of course: protectors and cases already exist for the Pixel Watch 3. But I can't be the only one who is seeing a trend with this smartwatch and the very probable necessity of additional purchases, right? 

Pixel Watch 3 Software & Features

The part where I expected a lot more

I'm a software nerd. And I happen to be a huge Android fan and since I also collect watches and smartwatches, that means I also nerd out to Wear OS a lot too. And this TL;DR was required for you to gauge not only my excitement for Wear OS 5, based on Android 14, but for the Pixel Watch 3 in general. 

Maybe I expected too much. Maybe Google undercooked the entire thing. I'll tell you all about and then you can decide for yourself. But honestly, us — the Pixel Watch 3 and I — kicking off things with me taking 30 minutes to set everything up and then the watch not remembering most of my choices isn't a great start. And it sucks for me to say this, but this has been the go-to experience with most Wear OS watches, besides those made by Samsung. 

The first thing I noticed about the OS on the Pixel Watch 3 is something dear to me: the Showtime feature. If you haven't heard of it before, it essentially makes your watch's screen not turn off for a given amount of time. I mean, smartwatches are not only accessories: they are fashion statements and are expensive at that. Of course I want my friends to notice my new gadget! That's half the fun of being a techie with techie friends. But with the Pixel Watch 3, that's not an option. And let me tell you: it made a difference. This was the first smartwatch I've ever went out in public with that has gotten literally no attention. Nobody noticed it and I had to bring as a topic to our conversation manually. And it's a shame, because as soon as people noticed it, they really started showing an interest. 

This is something that is semi-problematic across the entire Pixel line, if I have to be honest, and you can read more about it in this article I wrote about the issues I had with convincing my friends to get Pixel phones


After the exhausting set-up process, I decided to go and have a shower, which I imagined wouldn't pose much of an issue for the Pixel Watch 3, on account of its 5ATM rating and multiple water-related sport tracking activities. Unfortunately, it would appear that another thing that the Pixel Watch 3 doesn't have is automatic "water" detection. The setting name differs from device to device, but it always does the same thing: when the smartwatch detects water on the display for a longer period of time, it figures out that you are swimming or showering, and it raises the screen's touch resistance, as to prevent accidental inputs. 

But the Pixel Watch 3 didn't do that. Instead, it proceeded to change the songs I was listening via the Spotify app, resulting in a very art nouveau concoction of death metal, dance, classical and synthwave. This is also the part where I decided that I will no longer be wearing the watch in water or in the shower, so those times became the times of charging instead. Neat. 

One of the new features for the Pixel Watch 3 is called "Morning Brief" and it's all about the smartwatch serving you up with a neat infodump at the start of your day. And I'll be honest here: I don't get it. I understand that the watch is trying to give me info about my metrics, but then again, important things like a recap of my heart activity in the past 24 hours or how my last night's sleep session went are missing. As if that wasn't enough, important meetings or tasks were never mentioned, making me continuously question the necessity of such a feature.

As if that wasn't enough, there was one particular bit related to the Morning Brief, which drove me nuts. The prompt usually shows up notably later after I've gotten up, but that's not a big deal. When it does, you'll get a nifty sunrise icon at the bottom of your watch face. If you tap it, however, that brings up the notifications pane, where said Brief sits until you interact with it.

Now, pop quiz: how do you interact with notifications on Android? Well, you tap on them and then through magic and wizardry, they take you where you need to go. With the Morning Brief however, despite it being literally positioned in your notifications pane, alongside the rest of your notifications, tapping it doesn't initialize it. Instead what that does is bring up two options: open and dismiss. And the second one is always the more comfortable one to press, due to it being on the bottom side. But even when you don't mistakenly press it, this function still creates the need for an additional tap for you, which makes no sense what so ever.

I'll be honest: if I had found an easy way to disable Morning Brief — and if I wasn't wearing the Pixel Watch 3 to review it — I would surely do that. 


The other new feature, which I was very excited about is having Google Maps on my smartwatch. That sounds so, so helpful for navigating terrain you aren't familiar with or even for quickly checking routes while driving, as doing so from your wrist sounds way safer than grabbing your phone while waiting on a red light. 

And that would've been great. If it worked properly. Now, naturally: results here will vary heavily depending on where you are and how strong your signal is. For the record, I was in a busy city area and had a strong network signal. I was a man on a mission: I wanted to reach Point B from Point A. So I open up Maps from the Pixel Watch 3, enter my query and surely enough: it tells me that I'm kilometers away from where I actually am and as if that wasn't enough, sends me to an entirely wrong address.

Naturally, I mediately brought up my phone — a Pixel 6a, by the way — and try to do the same thing. And on my phone, it works without any issue. So in review: having Google Maps on your smartwatch is great, but only when it works. 

While on the topic of smartwatches being useful in meaningful ways: Gemini isn't available on the Pixel Watch 3. This isn't a dealbreaker, but it was certainly a bummer for me, as I was in the early access program. As such, I replaced Google Assistant with Gemini on my phone as soon as I could too. Is it the best AI out there? Not really, no, but it is useful for quick and easy queries. But going back to Assistant from Gemini was quite entertaining, so to help illustrate that, I'd like to present you with this conversation that I had with my smartwatch: 

- What is the code for the keypad in the hospital in the Silent Hill 2 remake?
- *brings up a YouTube video, which I am not willing to view on a tiny screen (also a video is not a code)*
- Please spell out the required number sequence for me. 
- *spells out my initial query for me, as if that has anything to do with what I asked for*
- You suck at this.
- I'm a cancer. (zodiac sign emoji)


I cannot make this up. It was too good not to share. But while I appreciate the comedic value of instances like this, I do believe that the point of an assistant that I can access from my watch is to be useful in addition to funny. 

One last software gripe: randomly, the smartwatch's screen would go all blurry and a simple, white digital clock would appear. I have no idea how I provoked this, but it happened to me numerous times and I could never replicate it. A simple button press would shoo it away, but a couple of times this happened while I was trying to accept a call and — wouldn't you know it? — the button declines the call. Mind you, this was happening in an actual moment when my hands were occupied, so the watch literally got in the way of doing it's own job. 

If any of you know what this is all about and how I evoked it, please sound off in the comments. 

Workout features


Google really went all out with promoting the Pixel Watch 3 as the go-to jogging watch. I don't do a lot of running myself due to issues with my knees, but hey: I do love me some walking and I exercise daily, so I think I'm fit to serve as a solid representative of the non-sporty average Joe. And let's be honest: that's most of us. 

So, here's a TL;DR of how my time with the Pixel Watch 3 went:

  • It failed to automatically pick up every single training session I had, regardless if it was cardio, weightlifting or walking.
  • It had the highest success rate with picking up my evening strolls, but only I was at least halfway through them, as in: it took 20-30 minutes for the watch to figure it out.
  • Burned calory calculations don't seem accurate. I'm not huge into tracking calories, but me burning more calories through short thirty-minute walks than what I burn off during an hour and a half long training session just does not compute to me (or my other smartwatches, which present me with notably different stats).
  • I couldn't find any options to disable GPS tracking for walks and one 30-minute session usually costed me at least 35% of battery life. 
  • The watch insists that the screen stays on during the session. There was a "Lock" button, which I figured would turn off the screen, but instead it just prevented inputs. In order to turn off the screen, one is expected to minimize the app, but then you can't see your stats unless you get back in the app via a tap. Typically, on other watches, the screen just dims automatically when your hand is lowered and then brightens up when the watch detects that you are looking at it, as if checking to see the time. The Pixel Watch 3, while in workout mode, does not do that, which is baffling to me. 
  • One morning, I awoke to having gone 1,500 steps while in night mode. It took me awhile to figure that out, but I did: this was because the watch's step count resets on midnight. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but it makes more sense to attribute the steps I've taking for the day after I've started said day, as in: after I woke up. Since the smartwatch is also tracking my sleep, why not give me that option? To be fair: most smartwatches work like this, but Google could've taken the chance to step things up, considering all the fancy health-oriented features present on the Pixel Watch 3

Now, one of the new features with the Pixel Watch 3 is the Readiness Score. It was locked off for me until I had worn the watch for five days, which is why you are getting this review later than usual. The feature essentially uses a combination of real-time and historical data to try and give you a general idea of how ready your body is for your next workout. 

Well, if I had to go by what the Pixel Watch 3 tells me, I should practically never work out. Not only that, but after those initial five days had come and gone, the watch never presented me with a neat summary of what this feature is, what data it takes into consideration and how I can best take advantage of it. It just gave me another stat: another number to follow, without being much sure of how or why I'd want to do that. 

I am more displeased than anything. Sure, I'm not an ultra-sportsy person, so maybe all of these "issues" make more sense to that crowd. But then again, does Google really think that most of us are fitness freaks? Food for thought.

Sleep tracking



I'll be honest: given what I shared with you above, I really didn't think that Sleep Tracking on the Pixel Watch 3 would be this good. Without a doubt in my mind, this was the most immaculate and accurate sleep tracking experience I've had. The Pixel Watch 3 continuously and correctly figured out my sleep patterns and overall, I was impressed. 

The two issues I had with sleep tracking are as follows:
  • I sometimes got hand cramps from the strap, but loosening it up only led to inaccurate tracking.
  • The watch randomly didn't assign a sleep score to two of my days, and it never told me why. Spooky!

There's not much more to say in this regard, really. The watch itself, for one reason or another, never told me something particularly useful or entertaining about my sleep schedule: I basically felt about as good as the graph it displayed looked. That being said, I take this as a good sign: not having any extra pop-ups, warnings or tips made me feel like I have a pretty solid schedule. Which, in all honesty, is important to me, since I've had issues with sleeping in the past, so I do put a lot of effort in sleeping well. So the Pixel Watch 3, in its non-intrusive infodumps, served as an appreciated confirmation that I'm basically doing things right. Good!

All that being said: sleep tracking technology has improved a ton in recent years, isn't that expensive anymore and we already have external trackers that do a pretty okay job at tracking anyway. Which is my way of saying that I believe that very few of you would actually bother getting a Pixel Watch 3 for sleep tracking in particular. But if you do: you're in for a good time. 

Health features


Does the Pixel Watch 3 offer health features? Yep! Are they in any way exceptional when compared with the usual offerings, found on other smartwatches from recent times? I don't think so and if I'm wrong, then the watch didn't really bother to make that apparent. 

I've had some slight heart-related issues in the past, so I take heartrate tracking pretty seriously. On that front, I can say a lot, but I'll summarize it for you like this: this is probably the most accurate, non-medically-certified BPM tracking experience I've had. If this is what you need a smartwatch for, and the Pixel Watch 3 fits your budget: you should bump it up in your list.

My only general gripe with the health features on the Pixel Watch 3 is that half the time, if I wanted to check something more particular, the smartwatch would prompt the Fitbit app to open on my phone. In my view, this creates extra friction between the user and the features. In all honesty, I can't imagine any real hardware or software limitation that would prevent the watch from giving me the data I was looking for on the spot, especially considering that this is how it works on almost all other smartwatches I've spent time with in the past. 

Pixel Watch 3 Battery and Charging

Less of a difference than you might think

As someone who was really impressed with the creative problem solving on display — no pardon for the pun, completely intentional — with watches like the TicWatch 3 Pro, I was really excited to see Google handle something similar in spirit. The TicWatch model in question essentially had two displays: an LCD one that would show you basic stats and the time, and then an LED one to do all the smartwatch stuff. The result? Days of battery life and a unique style. And to me, Google's dual-chip architecture thing was something that could potentially have the same impact. 

In reality, it did not. I feel like the Pixel Watch 3, despite its numerous innovations, performs about as well as most other Wear OS-driven smartwatches out there. Depending on usage, your miles will certainly vary. At worst, I had to charge the watch 7 hours in, because it lost most of its battery after tracking one workout session and one evening stroll. At best, the watch lasted me almost a full two days. That, however, is without any tracking, with barely any active use and the last five hours of that period were spent with Battery Saver enabled. 

On the other hand, the Pixel Watch 3 had no issue going from 15% to 80% in just about 20 minutes, but then it needed somewhere around another 40 minutes to reach 100%. For battery health reasons, I think fully charging the watch bi-weekly is more than fine, but other than that: relying on the quick 80% to get you through a typical day should work for most people. Unless they track a lot of workouts or use Maps. Which are part of the smartwatch's main selling points. Oh well! 

The first day I got the Pixel Watch 3, I got a "pro tip" by the online community to set the watch on Battery Saver before I go to sleep. The point of the combo was to sort of cheat the system and maybe save more battery throughout the night, which could theoretically work due to the dual-chip architecture. So here goes:

Does Battery Saver impact Night Mode on the Pixel Watch 3?


  • Night one: spent entirely in Night Mode. I went to bed at 92% and woke up at 82%. 10% was lost overnight, which is acceptable.
  • Night two: spent in Night Mode, combined with Battery Saver. I went to bed with 84% of battery and I woke up with... 72%? I hate math, so make of that what you will.
  • Night three: Night Mode, activated automatically and without charging the smartwatch throughout the day. Resulted in, yet again, 10% lost.

So, in review, we learned that:
  • The Pixel Watch 3 looses about 10% of battery per night.
  • Battery Saver has very little impact throughout the night if Night Mode is already on.
  • Not using Night Mode would be insane, since the feature saves you from the Pixel Watch 3 accidentally blinding you while you sleep.

Now I'd like to bring up the charger. In short: I don't like it. Despite us having had magnetic chargers for over a decade now, we haven't gotten closer to improving them in a meaningful way. The Pixel Watch 3 took an unreasonably long time to position in a way, where the charging process would actually begin. To be clear: the magnets snap the watch into place, but some micro-alignments must always be adjusted for the actual flow of electricity to start going through, or at least this was my experience. Not only that, but the charger zapped me more times that I'm comfortable with. Now, that last part might be due to my particular unit, but regardless, I sincerely hoped for a more streamlined experience. 

Pixel Watch 3 Voice Calls and Haptics

Simultaneously, great and not so much

I did not expect call quality on the Pixel Watch 3 to be this good. I actually used the smartwatch in a totally unplanned and unscripted call for the first time, and after a certain point, I literally said "Excuse me, but are you hearing me fine? Like, no weird echoes or a tinny sound to my voice, or anything?" and the caller on the other side was "Nope, I hear you crystal clear, why?".

Well, the reason why is that the Pixel Watch 3 was on my right wrist, which was positioned closer to my knee than to my mouth at the time. And not only could they hear me fine: I could hear them great as well. I'll be honest: I've never liked taking calls with a smartwatch in the past, but the Pixel Watch 3 made that seem viable for sure.

Except for when it didn't work. On numerous occasions, I would pick up the call only for nothing to happen. I didn't hear the caller and they didn't hear me, and worst of all: the screen would freeze and I couldn't do anything until they hung up. After that, I'd need to restart the smartwatch in order to get calling to work again in the first place. Now, mind you, this happened in about 30% of cases and I'm pretty sure that Google will address it with a software patch down the line, but still. 

On the topic of haptics, I've got little to say. They were pleasant, but a bit too hollow for my taste. I like stabby, warm-feeling haptics, so if you care about that, the ones on the Pixel Watch 3 might bother you a bit. I disliked something very particular about the haptics motor too: when I am navigating the watch, the haptics feel closer to my fingers than to my wrist, which made me feel oddly dethatched from the thing. 

While these are a couple of fun observations, in any case, the haptics behaved on the industry standard and were in no way a significant dealbreaker. 

Pixel Watch 3 Competitors

It is getting crowded in here

The smartwatch market, if samey, is quite competitive, which is an oxymoron of its own kind when you stop to think about it. Beyond that, however, it doesn't take much effort to find other models from different brands which you can easily compare with the Pixel Watch 3. Most notably, the following come to mind:


And if you need the specifics, we've got you covered with these comparisons:


While it may seem like you've got a tough choice ahead of you, in reality all you need to do in order to best figure out which watch is fit for you, is ask "What type of user am I?". We're living in an age, where practically all smartwatches cover the staple basics to a reasonable extent, so you're better off looking at the tiny details that set these models apart. 

  • Are you in need of something extra user-friendly and feature-packed? Then the Galaxy Watch is the better route. 
  • If you are an Apple connoisseur, then you are certain to get more out of having an Apple Watch than a Pixel Watch 3
  • Are you in need of true built-in GPS features and a long battery life? Well, that's what Garmin is famous for. 
  • And, of course: no one can beat the Pixel Watch 3's space-grade look and feel. 

And if you are set in picking up the latest entry in the list above, then here's what you've got to consider: 

Pixel Watch 3, 45mm:
  • $349 for the Wi-Fi model
  • $449 for the Wi-Fi + LTE model

Pixel Watch 3, 41mm:
  • $399 for the Wi-Fi variant
  • $449 for the Wi-Fi + LTE variant

Should you buy the Pixel Watch 3?


In all honesty, this is a tough one. On the one hand, no other smartwatch on the market looks or feels like the Pixel Watch 3, no quarrel. On the other, there is an observable dichotomy here: some features are state-of-the-art, while others barely work as intended. The Pixel Watch 3 covers all the basics — at least to some extent — but then there is this noticeable lack of quality assurance across the entire experience, which makes me hesitant to recommend this smartwatch to every type of user, considering the price that Google's asking for it.

You should buy the Pixel Watch 3 if you are in it for the fitness side of things and already own a wardrobe, which can fit the model's peculiar styling. You should also consider it if heart tracking, sleep tracking or voice calls are very important to your day-to-day business. As long as you love how the watch looks and feels to an extent, where you can overlook some of the bugs and issues, you'll probably be happy with the Pixel Watch 3

You should not buy the Pixel Watch 3 if software issues drive you insane or if Fitbit isn't your favorite fitness service. Also, if you've already invested heavily in a notable amount of standard-issue bands and/or custom watch faces: you'll probably want to carefully consider if you are okay with not being able to use any of those if you commit to a Pixel Watch 3. Lastly, if you were hoping that the Pixel Watch 3 will be the disruptor, that could finally shuffle-up the smartwatch scene, I have to say: this ain't it.


Pros

  • Unique, modern aesthetic
  • Unrivaled performance in some aspects
  • Notably comfortable

Cons

  • Still doesn't feel like a true next-gen Pixel Watch
  • Brimming with bugs and software issues
  • Its best features are quite niche
  • Forces you to use proprietary watch bands and does not work with apps like Facer
  • Staple smartwatch features are outright missing for no real reason

PhoneArena Rating:

6.8

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