Pixel Watch 3 might offer great battery life thanks to Google's new 'hybrid' Wear OS

Google’s efforts to refine Wear OS continue to make waves as the company pushes for greater efficiency and improved user experience. The upcoming Pixel Watch 3, anticipated to launch alongside the Pixel 9 later this year, could stand to benefit significantly from a new ‘hybrid’ feature built into the latest version of Wear OS.

In a recent official blog post, Google detailed fundamental changes in its smartwatch operating system – specifically a “hybrid interface” that dramatically restructures how tasks are managed. This interface allows for intelligent switching between the smartwatch’s main processor (AP) and the low-power microcontroller unit (MCU). The key advantage is that when the powerful processor isn’t actively needed, it can be suspended, conserving significant amounts of battery.

The genius of the hybrid system lies in how seamlessly it manages the workload. The lower-power MCU is primed to handle a surprising variety of routine tasks:

• Reading, dismissing, and even using built-in quick replies for notifications.
• Constant tracking of health sensor data.
• Rendering and updating the watch face display.
• Remote camera control.
• Audio processing.

Essentially, the powerful application processor is reserved for heavy-duty tasks such as running apps, utilizing the keyboard, or performing complex calculations. For most of your day-to-day interactions with the smartwatch, the MCU works behind the scenes to keep things running smoothly and power-efficiently.

The OnePlus Watch 2, unveiled at MWC 2024, has already demonstrated the effectiveness of this model. The hybrid interface is a pivotal reason for this watch’s remarkable 100-hour battery life.

The upcoming Pixel Watch 3 is in a favorable position. While likely to use a similar Snapdragon chipset as the Pixel Watch 2, Google could potentially pair it with a more powerful co-processor. Doing so would open the door to fully harnessing the new Wear OS features, potentially leading to a massive leap forward in battery life on the Pixel Watch 3.

While the OnePlus Watch 2 showcases the potential, an exciting question remains: Will existing Wear OS watches like the Pixel Watch 2 also benefit from this? While Google hasn’t offered a definitive answer, the way they’ve designed this hybrid interface suggests it can be partially implemented by watchmakers to varying degrees, depending on their specific hardware setups.

Some universally applicable efficiency gains seem almost certain, such as continuous health data tracking shifting to the MCU rather than needlessly taxing the main processor.

Samsung, currently using their own custom Exynos chips with a different architecture, might find it more challenging to adopt the specific hybrid interface design. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that they won’t see any improvements, as the fundamental concept of shifting tasks to lower-power cores is still valid and could be explored.

Google’s push for efficiency is a win-win for smartwatch users. These changes point towards a future where charging your Wear OS watch every single day might become a thing of the past. I personally ditched wearing my Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 due to the headache of having to charge it every single day. So going forward, if smartwatches can last longer, I might just get back to wearing one. The OnePlus Watch 2 looks promising, but I’m excited to see what Google brings forward with the Pixel Watch 3.