The Google Pixel Watch’s sleek design makes it stound out from rivals, as does its Wear OS interface, built on the Material UI announced by Google during its I/O event last year. This further boosts the smartwatch’s sleek and stylish design by providing users with minimalistic and stylish interactions and watch faces.

Samsung and Apple offer many watch faces to their users, but none as minimalistic and stylish as the ones offered by the Pixel Watch. However, Samsung’s Galaxy watches offer a large variety of watch faces that cater to a diverse group of users. It remains to be seen if the Pixel Watch will offer the same.

Cutting corners on the Pixel Watch?

Despite the investments Google has poured into developing the watch, such as purchasing Fitbit for $2.1 billion, refining Wear OS over the years, and designing the Pixel Watch, Google has baffled the mind by giving the beautifully sleek and stylish Pixel Watch thick bezels. Bezels that most rival smartwatches were rocking in the previous decade and worked hard to shrink.

One could speculate that Google did this to save some money on manufacturing costs as a smaller display means less spending on screens. If this is indeed the reason, Google has made a strategic error. The Pixel Watch is a device that has been years in the making and one that Google is using to lure users into its ecosystem of products and services. Now is not the time to cut corners, but rather the time to go all-in, as for the first time in its history Google has devices in multiple categories to rival Apple and Samsung.

Problems moving forward

Moving forward, Google needs to carefully consider how to approach handling Fitbit smartwatches while promoting its Pixel Watch. It is understandable that Google would want to push the Pixel over Fitbit smartwatches, but it should not alienate loyal and long-time Fitbit users in the process by making Fitbit smartwatches redundant.

Certain functionalities such as Wi-Fi support and audio playback, for example, have already been disabled on the Fitbit Sense 2, Versa 4, and Versa Lite Edition. Certain Fitbit devices have unique and popular features that have not been ported over to the Pixel Watch, such as an EDA sensor, which tracks users’ stress levels, and a temperature sensor. Google would do well to port over all the key features in Fitbit smartwatches to the Pixel Watch before making the former redundant, otherwise it’s putting itself in a position where it is selling two half-baked goods.

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