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.
Google Pixel Watch 2
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 32×32 mm display size (up from 30×30 mm on the Pixel Watch 2), the bigger one has a 36×36 mm display size, and the resolution is 408×408 and 456×456, 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.