{"id":185954,"date":"2025-10-08T17:17:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T17:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/185954\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T17:17:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T17:17:07","slug":"google-pixel-watch-4-vs-apple-watch-ultra-3-surprisingly-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/185954\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Pixel Watch 4 vs. Apple Watch Ultra 3: Surprisingly Close"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paywall\">For both watches, you need an active carrier plan to access satellites\u2014that is, you must have a separate phone line or a number share for your watch. You must be in a spot with a clear view of the sky, and both the Pixel Watch 4 and the Watch Ultra 3 will patiently guide you to get the best satellite reception. (I like this feature because I often have a hard time finding reception with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/gallery\/best-satellite-messengers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a regular satellite messenger<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">The Pixel Watch 4 only offers emergency services over satellite\u2014that is, you have to dial 911 and be in an active emergency, and you can only do so in the contiguous US for now. The Watch Ultra 3 lets you send regular texts, like you can with your iPhone. For international travelers, satellite messaging is available for the Watch Ultra 3 in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, and the US.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Offline maps were the first time I\u2019ve bumped up against the limitations of Apple\u2019s famous walled garden. Apple introduced offline topographic maps with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/apple-watchos-10-new-features\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">WatchOS 10<\/a>. I\u2019ve used it before, and it\u2019s fine. You search for the area in Apple Maps, sync with your watch, build your own hiking routes, etc. I like it better than using a Garmin because you don\u2019t have to use dedicated software, nor do you have to subscribe to a platform like AllTrails.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">I just didn\u2019t realize how much more often my spouse and I use Google Maps. I made a plan to visit my friend\u2019s cabin and used Google Maps on my laptop to search for directions. I opened Google Maps on my Pixel 9 later on, and there it was. I downloaded the offline maps, zoomed out to include a scenic hike near her house, dropped the Pixel Watch 4 on the charger to sync the maps and top off the battery while I ran around filling a water bottle and grabbing a jacket and a chocolate bar. It was so easy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For both watches, you need an active carrier plan to access satellites\u2014that is, you must have a separate&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[304,6647,11917,786,844,5101,1758,2781,86,56,54,55,5913,5824],"class_list":{"0":"post-185954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gadgets","8":"tag-apple","9":"tag-fitness","10":"tag-fitness-trackers","11":"tag-gadgets","12":"tag-google","13":"tag-outdoors","14":"tag-shopping","15":"tag-smartwatches","16":"tag-technology","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-unitedkingdom","20":"tag-watches","21":"tag-wearables"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}