Update: Official Google Pixel Watch bands just leaked — here’s how they work.
The Google Pixel Watch is exciting enough as the first Pixel-branded smartwatch. But now the design's become a new source of intrigue, because it seems to have seen a subtle update between its latest appearance and its previous one.
This all begins with the Pixel Watch teaser on the Google Taiwan YouTube page. Google released a Pixel Watch teaser on its main channel last week, and both videos initially look like identical copies, showing off the Pixel Watch's design in detail with the same angles and watch faces. However, if you watch the two side-by side, the display on the Google Taiwan video seems to have become larger (via DroidLife and u/chelowski on Reddit's r/Android subreddit).
Here's a comparison of screenshots from both videos (the older video on the left-hand side and the newer one on the right). The angle of the virtual light source seems to have changed a bit. But even accounting for that, the watch face definitely takes up more room in the newer video, and the watch face elements have seemingly been expanded accordingly.
One criticism leveled at the Pixel Watch since the first video was that the bezels on its curved screen look particularly large compared to the best Android smartwatches already available, making it look outdated before it's even arrived. It seems that someone was listening to that point of contention, and tweaked the renders accordingly.
The fact the video's been edited isn't surprising by itself, since the video would need to have been changed anyway to add the Chinese text, remove the Google Pixel 7 teaser from the end and so on. But making the watch face larger is another thing altogether, as that's a major element of the product's design that's suddenly much different to before.
We've only seen the Pixel Watch in real life from a distance, on the wrist of Google SVP of devices and services Rick Osterloh at Google I/O earlier this year, so we can't say for sure which video is the more accurate. But either way, one of these videos is guaranteed to be wrong, or at least less accurate, than the other. Whatever happened inside Google that caused this change, it's made things a lot more confusing for potential customers who aren't quite sure what they'll be getting.
The answer to this strange question will arrive on October 6, the date of the Google October event and the Pixel Watch's full official reveal. We'll be seeing the Pixel 7 and Google Pixel 7 Pro appear here, too, plus hopefully some more details on the Pixel Tablet and maybe even confirmation of the Pixel Fold.
But I know that the burning question I'll have during this event is which Pixel Watch are we actually getting: the original, or the special Taiwanese edition with a larger display? We'll soon find out.
