What to Expect From Pixel Watch, Google's New Fitbit Smartwatch
What to Expect From Pixel Watch, Google's New Fitbit Smartwatch
9:49

What to Expect From Pixel Watch, Google's New Fitbit Smartwatch

Smartwatches
Speaker 1: Google's got a whole new smart watch. The pixel watch is real. Here's what we know about it, which isn't as much as you might think. Speaker 1: So at Google IO, which is Google's developer conference, the pixel watch was finally announced. There's a real product that's coming out in the fall. And for anyone who's been looking for some sort of new advanced Android compatible smart watch that was made [00:00:30] with the type of hardware focus that Google's pixel line has this, is it now, is this gonna be everything that you'd expect as kind of an apple watch killer or watch competitor for the Android set? Let's see. Maybe not exactly the way that you think. So the pixel watch was shown off and we got to see a glimpse of what it looks like. It looks very apple watch, like except it has a round display, much like the rest of the wear west watch line, the design details [00:01:00] look even more refined. This is very curved, has a domed display. It has a crown much like the apple watch looks like another button and it looks like it has a lot of sensors on the back. Speaker 1: Those we don't really know much about yet. And I'm super curious. One thing that this watch has, that's a big one is Fitbit. This is a Fitbit featured watch. This is something that is the first product or fruit of the collaboration between Google's hardware team and Fitbit, which Google acquired [00:01:30] a couple of years ago in the last year, Google announced a whole revamp of its watch line with where OS three, but it was kind of a half step move. We got the sense that there were a lot of big changes coming and Fipit indicated that it would start moving onto where OS watches in the future. Last year we had the Samsung galaxy watch four. That was the watch. That was the first to get wears three, but it was kind of a funky hybrid because it has wears three, but it also had a lot of [00:02:00] Samsung software and health features and services. Speaker 1: So it was a watch. That was probably the best Android watch last year, but it wasn't quite the wears watch. A lot of people might have been expecting. Now a year later, we get this watch it's coming out in the fall and it's gonna come out alongside the pixel seven and pixel seven pro phones, which we only got a brief look at. So the pixel watch, we know a little bit more about, again, it's a full featured wears watch. It's gonna have Fitbit [00:02:30] on it though. We don't know to what exact capacity and it's going to have cellular or cellular option. That's something that's common in where OS watches, but it's not been on any Fitbit watch before. So that's a new feature and we don't know the price. So I got a chance to talk to the head of Fitbit and the head of Google's wearables, James Park, about where things are going to be headed. Speaker 1: What's interesting about the vision for Fitbit, uh, similar [00:03:00] to where Google is looking at the rest of its hardware lined up is the term ambient computing. Now ambient is basically just where, you know, everything kind of lives everywhere. And that's something you've already probably seen on a lot of your devices, whether you're in the apple landscape or the Google landscape or the Amazon Alexa landscape, a lot of things talk to each other. We're used to that, but that's where the pixel watch may play a really big role in where Google's trying to head. We look at things like Google pixel buds, where the pixel buds pro [00:03:30] and the ability to pair with the watch and switch between that and a phone much like, you know, apple does with AirPods and the apple watch. And we're kind of used to with Samsung and others in the landscape, but there's that there's also Google assistant. Speaker 1: There's also the ability for this to potentially live other places. And that's where it also gets interesting because while Fitbit is going to be on the pixel watch, it'll be curious to see where else Fitbit shows up already. Uh, there's been some nest experimentation with sleep tracking, [00:04:00] whether some of those features become kind of Fitbit features or whether Fitbit services tie into other things in the Google smart home will have to find out. But I imagine that's part of the plan also for music, the ability to pair with some of Google's music services and have a better music system for Fitbit users seems like a plus here, but this is aimed to be a premium watch. This is something that already has been stated to be a premium vice by James Park, by Rick Olo. [00:04:30] Who's the head of hardware, Google. So expect a premium price and it looks like the rest of Fitbit's hardware lineup for the most part will still be there at least the trackers, so that you'll be able to get more affordable products so much like the pixel lineup. Speaker 1: It looks like it'll be a premium product. Although, you know, the pixel budget phone lineup does seem like it's aimed, you know, at a lower price. So it doesn't look like that's gonna be the case for the pixel watch. What about premium? Well, [00:05:00] I did find out that, you know, there's a subscription plan already for Fitbit Fitbit premium, and it looks like that's still in the works for how it works with pixel watch, but we don't know exactly how, but just keep in mind if you haven't used Fitbit before that there is this premium service that you pay for each month. That is the doorway to a lot of the insights and extra features that you'd probably want to use with Fitbit. Fitbit's not a loan in this regard. Most wearables now are moving to subscription models. Apple [00:05:30] has fitness plus Amazon halo has subscription there's Fitbit. Speaker 1: And it, it does seem like a, like a, like a growing trend in all of this. I'm not wild about subscriptions for wearables. Now Fitbit does have some BA some more basic features that do work without the subscription. It'll be interesting to see how all that plays out with subscription. Will this have all of the high end health sensors that the other high end Fitbit products have? We don't know [00:06:00] the things that have been discussed at this point are heart rate and sleep tracking. Those keep showing up in what Google is talking about with the pixel watch. That's what James Park talked about with the pixel watch. So you can expect that those might be the two biggest features in what are coming as far as things like ECG. Uh, as far as things like, uh, you know, Fitbits more experimental features like, um, ed, which is a electrodermal, um, skin response for measuring potential signs of stress, [00:06:30] uh, or temperature sensing. Speaker 1: It's not clear that any of those are necessarily showing up, but if you do look at the back of the pixel watch in the photo, not only do you see a variety of L E D markers, which suggest, um, you know, the ability to check for blood oxygen or get richer heart rate, uh, but it does have that metal plate, which makes me think of ECG. Um, also their ed sensor has, uh, that type of conductivity. I don't wanna speculate too much, but it does look like a pretty advanced back, um, as far as [00:07:00] what, what you'd expect out of sensors, but we just don't know. So what we do know is that it'll be premium. We know that it's gonna have Fitbit, and we know it's probably going to be one of the most interesting Android watches that's coming out this year, but there may be more because the whole idea of wheres and is supposed to be this landscape of other compatible watches. Speaker 1: I mean, Fossil's got wheres watches. Some of those are gonna get warehouses three, you've got Samsung's watches, and we don't know what's coming this year. So there are [00:07:30] a number of other ways that you could go. And when I think about the pixel lineup, I think about it as a way to introduce new cutting edge features that eventually make their way into other products will fit it, make its way into other watches it's possible, but we don't really know from the past how things will shake out in the future. Maybe the pixel watch does become the place where Fitbit lives in the wear west landscape, I guess we'll have to find out. And I'm really curious what the price is. Although [00:08:00] if you look at most of the watches that are out there, they do tend to fall in a pretty similar territory. So I wouldn't be surprised if the pixel watch landed about where the apple watch and Samsung galaxy watch for are at, and that the cellular has the bump up as you'd expect, I guess we'll have to wait till the fall to find out more details. Speaker 1: Um, the things I think about again, are, are music about interconnectivity. I also think about Google fit because Google fit and Fitbit remain separate, and [00:08:30] it looks like that's going to still be the case now how much those really talk to each other. They may not, but you might find other ways that Fitbit starts to be recognized by other Google services. And if I think about what I'd really want from this, I'd probably want that more than, you know, blending, Google fit and Fitbit, because I'm not really sure I'd, I'd use Google fit. It was kind of a stand in for, for something better, but a Fitbit is able to be, you know, you can pull those stats and get that information, or have it interact with other services [00:09:00] and do it in a way that keeps the data still separate as Google has been promising. Speaker 1: That would be really interesting. Uh, and, and that's pretty much what I'm looking for. I mean, the smart watch landscape is pretty straightforward at this point, but I think what Fitbit brings to the table as far as insights, as far as some of the more advanced, um, sensor features and some of the more advanced research that they've been doing, it really makes it interesting product, um, challenging apple, challenging Samsung for where health tech is gonna be heading [00:09:30] on our wrist. That's what we know so far. Let me know if you have any thoughts down below, and those are our initial thoughts based on Google's pixel watch, which is real and coming pretty soon. Thanks for watching.

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