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Google Pixel Watch 2
- Josh613 3y agoDoes everyone else assume it'll be a joke/junk/horrible before clicking the link, or is it just me?
- gnicholas 3y agoEh, at least the bands won't be made out of "finewoven".
- asadotzler 3y agoHow can people tolerate a watch that's half an inch thick? That's like twice the thickness of my phone.
- ChatGTP 3y agoI have an AW Ultra, never notice it. Edit: I absolutely love the watch so maybe I've just learned not to care, I agree it's a little bulky but the value I get out of it makes any bulk worth it.
- gnicholas 3y agoMy midsized Garmin is significantly thicker than my iPhone 13 mini. I don't really care though because it's lightweight. It's much lighter than any of the watches I ever wore as an adult.
- Yhippa 3y agoAnd battery life is probably around 2 weeks!
- tekla 3y agoI dont really understand how you could possibly care about thickness of a watch at the inch level
- Analemma_ 3y agoI think if you decide at all that you want a smartwatch, with all the functionality that entails, you are aware that you’re going to have a thick object on your wrist, so you’re either not bothered by this in the first place or you make peace with it. For what it’s worth, I have an Apple Watch— which is considerably thicker than the Pixel Watch— and I don’t notice the thickness at all, except maybe when putting on formalwear with tight cuffs.
- clnq 3y agoHow can people tolerate charging a watch each night? I can't get behind this idea of having a basket of electronics you need to babysit all the time so they don't run out of battery. Especially when we already have really battery efficient tech, like hybrid watches with e-ink display.
- r00fus 3y agoIt’s quite easy - I just put it in the charging cradle ($10 on Amazon) every night. Since the 4th edition it essentially lasts 2 days if I’m not doing heavy workouts so I can skip a charge.
- dymk 3y agoI don't wear my watch at night, so it may as well be on a charger
- kstrauser 3y agoDo you charge your phone at night? Plop your watch on the charger while you’re at it.
- teaearlgraycold 3y agoI'm more on the level of wondering why people want a mini smartphone on their wrist. Isn't one in your pocket enough? I do like having a heart-rate tracker, but having had a couple of fitbits the novelty eventually wears off and the reality that knowing the numbers isn't important sets in.
- jeromegv 3y agoFor me having the watch allows me to use my phone a lot less. I now often have to dig for my phone somewhere in my home since I haven’t used it in many hours. I get the important notifications I need and because the watch is limited I don’t feel the urge to open it every 2min to check what’s on social media.
- dotnet00 3y agoNot having to reach for the phone is pretty convenient, I can just leave my phone on my bed while cooking or working or whatever else and thus only care about truly important notifications, and because it doesn't involve a full "context switch" of pulling out a phone, it doesn't really feel intrusive, being just enough info for me to be able to determine if it justifies pausing what I'm doing and reaching for a phone or just making a mental note to get back to it after finishing what I'm doing. Also, if my hands are full/dirty I can still control media playback (granted that using the nose to tap on a watch probably looks pretty funny), and have weather right on my wrist (which is surprisingly handy). Edit: Also it turns out to be the best kind of alarm for me. Audio alarms are annoying (also to anyone else who has to hear it) and don't really tend to wake me up nicely. Turns out the slight vibration of the watch wakes me up pretty nicely without bothering people in other rooms.
- nradov 3y agoMy Garmin Descent Mk2 smartwatch is even thicker at 17.8mm. Not ideal, but the functionality is so good that I'm willing to sacrifice a bit of comfort. https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/633356#specs https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/633356#specs
- gnicholas 3y agoNotably, that page has many photos of the watch from the front, but you have to scroll down to get to a profile shot. It looks like a tank! (even to me, a fellow Garmin-owner)
- ellard 3y agoThere's enough of a market that the Casio G-Shock is still alive and well.
- animex 3y agoPixel "Watch": Mic, Speaker, Wi-Fi, LTE, GPS, Compass, Altimeter, SpO2, ECG, Heart Rate, Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Ambient, Light, Conductance, Temp, Barometer, Magnetometer, Wireless Charging, 2GB RAM, 32GB Flash ...but its 12mm thick?! xD And it's free with purchase of their flagship? Who could resist? PS> I don't work for Google/Pixel or any affiliated group.
- behnamoh 3y agoI really wanna like Google products but so many abandoned Google projects, inconsistent ecosystem, Google privacy nightmares, poor aftermarket experience, and lack of attention to UI and UX (remember the jump from Android 11 to 12?) have made me settle on iphone and Apple’s ecosystem.
- pcurve 3y agoWhile I don't think Google will abandon Pixel phone, yeah I'd be wary of buying pixel watch for sure. For better or worse, Apple's rectangular form factor is something people have gotten used to and frankly it's more space efficient than a circle. To really make a dent in the market place, they should build a product that has a Wow factor that is good enough to lure even Apple Watch users away.
- Yhippa 3y agoThe Apple Watch isn't anything to write home about, but it gets the job done (for the most part). Battery life is horrible. I'm charging daily. After using a bunch of form factors, only Garmin seems to get the circle right and WearOS seems like there wasn't a lot of thought put into doing smartwatch tasks on that form factor. They are seriously going to need to come up with something out of the box that you mentioned to draw users. There is no wow factor at all with this thing.
- encomiast 3y agoSame. I have various "accounts" with google to manage various services and I can never find the right place to login for the set of services I am looking for.
- Mistletoe 3y agoI’ll never forgive them for how they butchered Nest. And yes I do think of that when I contemplate anything from Google like this watch.
- clnq 3y ago> I really wanna like Google products Why?
- clnq 3y agoIt's ironic or a bit disingenuous that a device putting constant notifications on your wrist is advertised for stress relief. Not unique to PW2, quite common in tech, but regardless...
- macintux 3y agoI can’t speak specifically to the Pixel products, but my Apple Watch has significantly reduced notification angst for me. I limit my watch notifications to the most important ones, allow more on the phone but the mute switch is always on, so I’ll check it when I feel like it. And because I don’t need to drag my phone out of my pocket when important notifications arrive, I can respond or ignore them with much less literal and figurative friction.
- clnq 3y agoWell, you can mitigate some of the negative effects of notifications by reducing them everywhere - on your phone, on your PC, on your watch. But a watch is a new way for them to reach you. It goes in the opposite direction to reduction. I'm probably showing my age here, but there was a time that's hard to remember now when there were no notifications, no devices constantly vying for our attention. You would know what you deemed important when you wanted to know it. No notification angst to reduce, no distractions to fight, no productivity to claw back, no sleep disruption to schedule DND around, no cognitive overload of all the systems on your machine, let alone a computer we carry around all the time, trying to tell you their state. That was for engineers operating complex systems, for 8 hours a day - very rarely more. Perhaps we are accepting things like "you can snooze notifications now" because we've adjusted to the new, quite crappy, normal. Imagine an advert for a car that says "you can turn off sudden unintended accelerations on your preferred hours" in a market where cars would never SUA. That's the normal we had for notifications - none of the stress or anxiety.
- macintux 3y agoI also remember what it was like to not be able to reach loved ones in emergencies, to periodically find a pay phone to check a voicemail system while waiting for an important call, to have no idea that a tornado was coming. I’m happier with the choice to monitor in real-time what’s happening in my life, or not monitor, vs what we used to have: no choice at all.
- headphoneswater 3y ago[dead]
- dcchambers 3y agoI had no idea the battery life on most smart watches is so bad that "24 hours of screen on battery life" is something to brag about. The apple watch is no better. My Garmin Forerunner 945 (a running focused smart watch), more than two years old at this point, gets nearly two weeks of battery life on a single charge, and it's got an always-on screen as well. --- Quick edit: Even the latest Forerunner 965, which has an AMOLED touch screen, gets 7 days of battery life in display-always-on mode, and 3 weeks in default mode (display turns off)^1 [1]: https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=FEjONGCI270wlBlREC7Uw8&productID=886725&tab=topics https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=FEjONGCI270wlBlREC7Uw8...
- sneak 3y agoThe chonky apple watch lasts 2-3 days. The small ones are engineering marvels to last even 24h.
- tekla 3y agoYes, transflective screens consume MUCH less energy than a OLED/LCD or whatever display tech that these watches have that require backlights to function. The Garmin works just fine without an active backlight (due to transflective) and has much fewer colors and worse resolution and worse refresh rate. It also does not have a touchscreen which also consumes lots of energy. The modern smart watch advertises always on screens because it manages to get a day of battery life with a "good" display
- dcchambers 3y agoAll good points, though even the latest Forerunner 965, which has an AMOLED touch screen, gets 7 days of battery life in display-always-on mode, and 3 weeks in default mode (display turns off)^1 [1]: https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=FEjONGCI270wlBlREC7Uw8&productID=886725&tab=topics https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=FEjONGCI270wlBlREC7Uw8...
- wkat4242 3y agoMy Amazfit GTS 2 mini also manages 2 weeks on battery and it's got an OLED screen that I've set to always on, and it's got a touchscreen. And it's a small and light watch so the battery can't be that big. I think the biggest battery waste is the full OS. Like the Garmins my watch doesn't have installable apps. Ps Garmin also sells OLED touch models with long battery life. Like the venu
- jdalgetty 3y agoIt’s kind of ugly
- m4jor 3y agoGoogle Pixel Watch 1 = 294 mAh Google Pixel Watch 2 = 306 mAh A small improvement I suppose.
- wkat4242 3y ago400 bucks for a device they refuse to repair if you break it, and refuse to make spare parts. Not a very wise purchase.
- sircastor 3y agoThe device’s utility is what gives it value. I appreciate that repairability is a desirable aspect, but it’s not the tipping point for most people. Repairabilty is a “what if” feature.
- wkat4242 3y agoIt's not just about the value. It's about sustainability and screwing customers over. They should at least make spare parts available. Just telling the customers "just buy a new one" if they have a cracked screen is just not acceptable in 2023.
- Justin_K 3y agoAnd requires a subscription to fully use the HW. What a shit product.
- wilsonnb3 3y agoPer footnote 11, the "monthly sleep analysis" requires the FitBit premium subscription. I am very hesitant to support a smartwatch that locks features behind a subscription, even though I don't particularly care about the sleep analysis. I don't really see who this is for anyways. If you want a fitness tracker, you are better off with something from Garmin or FitBit. If you want the best smartwatch experience, nothing comes close to the Apple Watch. The Galaxy Watches are cheaper and have more size/style options. This is just another copycat product line that exists solely because competitors have them and probably won't exist in 3-5 years.
- tills13 3y agoOnly that feature is locked behind the subscription. Most people will be satisfied by the included nightly sleep analysis.
- richforrester 3y agoI'm not keen on Apple's products. Getting their watch to go with my Pixel phone seems kinda ... no. So, this product is for the part of the world that doesn't use iPhones, I suppose. I'm kinda keen. Awaiting a MKBHD video, as per. .edit: Guessing that feature's locked because it's part of FitBit, which was purchased by Google but probably still functions a bit separately.
- TheDong 3y agoFitbit Premium appears to cost $80/year, but side-loading an app so you can play with data yourself is free. On the other hand, the Apple Watch requires buying a macbook ($1000 one time) + a $100/year annual subscription for ad-hoc distribution to run your own app on your watch and play with data. I assume the majority of hacker news users who buy a smart watch are going to end up writing a few simple apps/widgets/whatever for themselves, so it seems to me like, even if you do buy the optional fitbit premium subscription, you'll end up paying less per year than for an apple watch. I'm quite hesitant of smart-watches that lock writing and running my own simple widgets behind a subscription.
- afavour 3y ago
- hparadiz 3y agoDoes anyone know if this defaults to Google Fit or Fitbit as the primary data collector?
- Urgo 3y agoWorth noting they are offering a promo, at least in some markets, that you get the pixel watch 2 for free if you preorder the pixel 8 pro, or $200 off if you preorder the pixel 8.
- wfriesen 3y agoIn Australia it's $400 Google Store credit with the Pro, $250 with the regular. Pixel Watch 2 starts at $549.
- DustinBrett 3y agoI pre-ordered the Pixel 8 Pro with Koodo in Canada and it comes with the Watch 2 LTE which is like $549 CAD, so a good deal I thought as I was in the market for a phone and a watch.
- mianos 3y agoBefore you purchase, may I suggest going to the play store and reading the platform reviews.
- kaba0 3y agoAndroid really dropped the ball on their watch OS, it is absolutely unusable. I heard that they even pay a shitton of money for Samsung so they won’t create a new base OS for watches..
- Moldoteck 3y agoBut sams already did it. They have tizenos. The switch to wear os is a very recent thing
- MisterBastahrd 3y agoI'd rather be without a watch than wear one that looks like a cheap toy out of a bubble gum machine.
- quantumsequoia 3y agoThere's a lot of legitimate reasons to be skeptical of pixel watches. But I've never heard anyone cite aesthetics. They are some of the best looking watches in the market
- MisterBastahrd 3y agoYou've got to be joking. It's a ball attached to an ugly plastic strap.
- drcongo 3y agoAccording to this page, the Google Pixel Watch has "The largest collection of Pixel Watch Bands." - what a weird flex.