Our first look at what appears to be a Google Pixel Watch comes under strange circumstances: someone allegedly found its prototype lying around in a restaurant and sent photos to Android Central on condition of anonymity. The images of the alleged device match what we have seen from previously leaked renderings, to the round dial, rotating crown and almost frameless design.
As shown in the photos, a physical crown sits between two buttons on the side of the watch. If it’s something like the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4, the two buttons can be used to turn the watch on or off, return to the home screen, or even as a shortcut to download recently used apps. Meanwhile, the small hole next to the crown may be a microphone or perhaps an altimeter sensor used to track the ascent of the stairs. As noted by Android Central, the four pins on the side of the watch can be used for testing purposes and may not appear on the final model.
The watch seems to have a physical crown located between two buttons. Image: Android Central
The underside of the watch has a black bezel with what looks like an oval-shaped health tracking sensor in the center. The Android Central source also says that the lower part of the watch has a smooth feel, noting that it “looks metallic, but feels like it’s covered with glass”, similar to the glass pad of the Apple Watch.
Unfortunately, the Android Central source was unable to fully start the clock to see what the user interface might look like. When they tried to turn it on, a white Google logo appeared and nothing happened after that. A charger was also not left with the watch, but as Android Central notes, the watch can be charged in its box, just like the Apple Watch and Google’s Fitbit Versa 3 and Sense smartwatches. Although there are no pictures of the strap actually attached to the watch, it seems to come with a suitable method of gripping the straps, while the straps themselves resemble those that come with Fitbit’s smartwatch line. You can see all the leaked images on the Android Central website.
What looks like a sensor is on the underside of the watch. Image: Android Central
What is almost more interesting than the watch itself is the story behind it. This is similar to the way the iPhone 4 expired in 2010 – someone found a prototype iPhone in a restaurant, which was then purchased and demolished by Gizmodo (by the way, the photos of which mysteriously disappeared from the Gizmodo website). It turns out that the software engineer left the prototype there, so it is clear that such a situation exists and could happen.
But what’s weird about this lost and found case is that it doesn’t look like Google is even looking for the device (unlike Apple, which called to return its prototype to the iPhone at the time). Of course, there is always the possibility that all this is some complicated trick of Google to get more publicity for its upcoming watch, as all this is very reminiscent of the time when the Pixel 3 XL was found in the back of the Lyft (do you think that we will forget, Google?).
There are so many unanswered questions here, and although the circumstances surrounding the discovery of the watch may never be clarified, at least the characteristics of the actual watch will. For now, we know that Google will call the device Pixel Watch (a big surprise there) and we will probably find out even more details about Google I / O next month.
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