Our first look at what appears to be Google Pixel Watch comes under strange circumstances: someone allegedly found its prototype lying in a restaurant and sent pictures of it to Android Central on condition of anonymity. The images of the alleged device are consistent with what we have seen from previous leaked reproductions, down to the circular dial, the rotating crown and an almost frameless design.
As shown in the pictures, 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 clock 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 could be a microphone or perhaps an altimeter sensor used to track stairs. As Android Central Note that the four pins on the side of the watch can be used for testing purposes and may not appear on the final model.
The underside of the watch has a black frame with what looks like an oval-shaped health tracking sensor in the center. Android Central‘s source also says that the bottom of the watch feels smooth, noting that it “looks metallic but feels like it’s coated with glass,” similar to the glass back of the Apple Watch.
Unfortunately, Android Central the source was not able to start the clock completely up 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 back clockwise, but as Android Central notes, the watch may be charged in its case, just like the Apple Watch and Google-owned Fitbit Versa 3 and Sense smartwatches. Although there are no pictures of the strap actually attached to the watch, it seems like it comes with a proper method of snapping at the straps, while the straps themselves look like those that come with the Fitbit smartwatch line. You can see all the leaked pictures on Android Central‘s website.
What is almost more interesting than the watch itself is the story behind it. It’s similar to the way the iPhone 4 was leaked way back in 2010 – someone found an iPhone prototype in a restaurant, which was then bought and torn down by Gizmodo (where the images all mysteriously disappeared from Gizmodowebsite by the way). It turns out that a software engineer left the prototype there, so it is clear that such a situation has and can arise.
But the strange thing about this case of lost and found is that it does not appear that Google is even looking for the device (unlike Apple, which called to get its iPhone prototype back at the time). Of course, there’s always the possibility that it could all be a complicated trick from Google to get more publicity for its upcoming watch, as it’s all very reminiscent of the time a Pixel 3 XL was found on the back of a Lift (did you think you , we would already forget it, Google?).
There are so many questions that are not answered here, and although the circumstances surrounding the discovery of the watch may never be clarified, at least the features of the actual watch will. So far, we know Google will call the device the Pixel Watch (big surprise there), and we’ll probably find out even more details on next month’s Google I / O.