00:00Do you guys remember the first Pixel Watch back in 2022? I know, I know, I promise this is a video
00:07about the Pixel Watch 4, but I'm bringing up the OG Pixel Watch for a very good reason, because I
00:13almost can't believe how far Google's come in such a short amount of time. That original Pixel Watch
00:19had thick bezels, battery life was not great, and it just had a lot of first-gen quirks and growing
00:26pains to overcome. But fast forward to 2025, and with the Pixel Watch 4, it sort of feels like
00:33Google's starting to, dare I say it, take the lead in the smartwatch game. It's kind of wild.
00:40Let's start with the hardware. The Pixel Watch 4 has a new domed display that Google is calling
00:45the Actua 360. At first glance, it doesn't look that much different, but the new display design
00:51makes it so that the bezels are 15% thinner than last year's model, so you have about
00:5610% more active screen area. I was able to compare the Pixel Watch 4's display alongside the Pixel Watch
01:032 and 3, and side by side you can really see the progressive improvements on this front year over
01:08year. It's also 50% brighter with a maximum brightness of 3000 nits. Now, this isn't specifically
01:15a hardware thing, but Material 3 Expressive on Wear OS 6 also plays up all that extra screen space. The
01:22widgets and the menus have been redesigned to emphasize the circular shape and also fit more
01:27glanceable information into each screen. It's pretty cohesive with the Pixel Watch's previous design
01:34vibes, but from what I've seen so far, I'm digging it. Another thing you might have noticed with the
01:39Pixel Watch 4 is it's got a new charger. Instead of lying flat on a puck, it now charges on its side. It's kind of
01:47annoying that this is the third proprietary charger that Google's introduced in four years, but I
01:53actually kind of like this design. First, it turns your watch into this neat little desk or nightstand
01:58display, and second, it makes it so that it doesn't matter what kind of strap you're using because it'll
02:06just fit neatly on the charger instead of, you know, sometimes you have the strap and it flops over. Also,
02:11it looks like a little pillow for your very tired watch. It's very cute. Google says battery life has
02:17also improved. The 41mm watch lasts up to an estimated 30 hours, while the 45mm lasts 40 hours.
02:25Going into battery saver mode gets you up to two days on the smaller watch and three on the larger
02:30one. At our demo, I was able to stick a 45mm Pixel Watch 4 with about 50% battery life on the charger,
02:38in about 18 minutes, it was up to 94%. That's pretty good. Now, I brought up battery and display first
02:45because big news, everybody, the Pixel Watch 4's display and battery are now easier to repair and
02:52replace. If you take the straps off and look into the lug area, you can actually see these two teeny
02:58tiny little screws. Google told me that they're actually standard screws, not proprietary, so that
03:04you can actually replace the battery yourself. Repairability was a major issue with the previous Pixel
03:10watches. The Verge should know we had some incidents with the first two. So it's cool to see that Google is
03:19not only taking that feedback to heart, but actually taking a step forward. This is just not typical to see from a big tech
03:27company. There's a new speaker and haptics engine so you can interact with Gemini better because like the
03:33Galaxy Watch 8 series, Gemini is now on the Pixel Watch 4, which also means there's a new more powerful
03:41coprocessor with the Snapdragon W5 Gen 2 so that the watch can do more AI things. What kind of AI things? Well, like what we saw on the
03:52Galaxy watches, you'll be able to make more complex queries, things like summarizing emails and
03:57sequential requests across multiple apps. Smart replies are supposed to be more contextual and
04:03relevant to your conversations as well. So it's not limited to yes or nos and it's also not limited to
04:10the messages app. So long as your third party app supports quick replies, it'll also be able to get
04:15new contextual smart replies. Kakao talk, am I right my fellow Koreans? Anyway, so we didn't get to
04:23directly demo some of the other many updates coming to the watch, but they include some really cool
04:29things like there's going to be standalone SOS satellite communications for emergencies. This is going to be
04:36a first for any smartwatch and there's no actual extra subscription costs involved. There's also going to
04:43be dual frequency GPS, improved activity recognition, and coming in October, a personal AI health coach
04:50and the Fitbit app. AI fitness coaches and chatbots are all arranged with wearables at the moment, so it's
04:56not surprising to see that this is where Google's head is at. You know, honestly, the only thing that
05:02really isn't getting an update this year is the price, which you'd love to see the price stay the same.
05:08It's going to be the same as last year starting at $349.99 for the 41 millimeter and $3.99 for the 45
05:15millimeter. In all seriousness, these are some substantive changes. What we're seeing is Google
05:22starting to experiment and be the first to do things in the space. They're not catching up anymore.
05:29Technically, the Galaxy watches were the first to get Gemini, but Gemini is Google's baby and it's the
05:36first truly generative AI's assistant running on a smartwatch. Satellite SOS is also a first. Last
05:43year's loss of pulse feature, another first. Google is doing something new with repairability. Where
05:50other wearable makers have sort of felt like they're defaulting to these iterative year-over-year updates,
05:57it's refreshing to see Google building some real tangible momentum and pushing in some new areas.
06:04Can they keep that up? We're just going to have to see. We'll also have to live with and test the
06:10Pixel Watch 4 before delivering any kind of verdict on whether these updates are good, but from what
06:17I've seen so far and where everything seems to be going, I don't know guys, I kind of feel like
06:24Google's got the wearable juice right now. That's wild. Like I said before, that's just wild. It's only been
06:30four years. That's wild.
06:34The Pixel Buds 2A, they were also there and repairable. You can like take the little thingy
06:40out and replace the the battery. That's, you know, that's that's genuinely cool. We saw them,
06:46we touched them. They're earbuds.
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