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When Wear OS 7 landed on my Pixel Watch last month, there wasn’t much that caught my eye. To be honest, I pretty much forgot about it entirely. Recently, though, I’ve noticed something, and I realized this update was more important than I thought.
At the time of writing, only Pixel Watches have Wear OS 7 (Android 17). Galaxy Watch models should receive the update by the end of the year, but Samsung will put its own touches on it. I’ve been using it on my Pixel Watch 4 for several weeks, and the most impressive thing so far was barely mentioned.
Google really undersold the battery improvements
The one improvement I’ve actually noticed
Google first gave us a look at Wear OS 7 back in May. The over 1.5K-word Developers Blog post highlighted a bunch of stuff, but only one sentence mentioned battery life improvements:
For watches upgrading from Wear OS 6 to Wear OS 7, average users can expect up to 10% improvement in battery life.
Similarly, when Wear OS 7 was officially released last month, Google’s blog post put battery life improvements at the very bottom with a short two-sentence description:
Thanks to deep, system-level power optimizations, Wear OS 7 lets you enjoy all of these new features. Average users who upgrade their watches from Wear OS 6 to Wear OS 7 can expect up to 10% improvement in battery life.
I’m pointing this out because, of all the features that Google talked about, the one it nonchalantly tossed in there as an “oh yeah, we did this too” has had the biggest impact on my daily life. It’s not new widgets, Live Updates, better media controls, or anything related to AI.
Battery life on my Pixel Watch is incredible now
It seemingly happened overnight
First, I should mention that battery life on my Pixel Watch 4 has never been bad. I have the 45mm model, which has a big 455mAh battery. Essentially, only the Galaxy Watch Ultra has a larger battery (590mAh) in the Wear OS world. That being said, I’ve noticed a clear improvement in recent weeks.
It started last weekend on a bikepacking trip. I took the Pixel Watch off the charger at around 7:00 AM and started biking at 8:45 AM. Throughout the day, I was running the Ride with GPS app on my watch. The app uses GPS to provide navigation instructions, and it records my heart rate as well. I had it running for at least four hours, during which time I was frequently waking the screen.
After an exhausting day, I was ready to go to bed in my tiny hiking tent at 8:00 PM. I had made sure to pack my charger, expecting the watch to drain pretty low after so much activity tracking. However, when I slipped it off my wrist and placed it on the charger, I was shocked to see the screen say “66%.” I actually took it off the charger and looked again just to be sure.
That was very impressive. Activity tracking is something that almost always eats up a bunch of battery. It requires multiple sensors to be firing almost constantly, and the screen frequently turns on with updates. Regardless, I still let it fully charge overnight.
The next day, I went on a much shorter route—only used Ride with GPS for about two hours. When I got home, I didn’t feel like unpacking all of my gear. So, when I went to bed that night, I wasn’t able to charge my Pixel Watch like I usually do. And then I didn’t unpack the next day, either. Oops.
Finally, at the end of the third day, I realized how long it’d been since I charged the watch—it was at 18%. Three full days, including one day with some activity tracking, and Battery Saver mode hadn’t even kicked in yet. I have never gotten battery life that good from a Wear OS smartwatch that wasn’t specifically designed with longevity in mind.
On top of all that, the Pixel Watch 4 charges so fast that it was fully topped off in less than an hour. Three days of use with just one hour of charging. That’s pretty wild.
This is a great update
As I said, I was pretty underwhelmed by Wear OS 7. Live Updates are nice, but I’ve rarely actually seen them on Android. The improved media controls also seem genuinely useful, but again, it’s not something I’ve needed. Battery life, on the other hand, is something that matters every single day. Packing yet another charging cable on trips is a pain. Now, I might not bring one on my next weekend excursion.
