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Taylor Kerns \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n
This past week, Google upgraded its Pixel Watch wearables to Wear OS 6.1<\/a>. The update brings Android 16 QPR2 to watches for the first time, and more importantly, includes some cool new features. The highest-profile addition is new gesture controls that let you pinch your fingers or flick your wrist to perform certain actions with one hand, a useful option that competitors like Samsung and Apple have offered variations of for some time in their own wearables.<\/p>\n There\u2019s just one problem. These gesture controls are exclusive to the latest Pixel Watch 4<\/a>, with no immediate plans from Google to bring them to older models. And if you ask me, that feels pretty un-Pixely.<\/p>\n How often do you upgrade your smartwatch?<\/p>\n 9 votes<\/p>\n Every year.<\/p>\n 0%<\/p>\n Every other year.<\/p>\n 0%<\/p>\n Once every few years.<\/p>\n 44%<\/p>\n Whenever the old one stops working.<\/p>\n 56%<\/p>\n What\u2019s in an update?<\/p>\n Kaitlyn Cimino \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n The Wear OS 6.1 update brings a couple of new features to the Pixel Watch 4. There are the gesture controls and some behind-the-scenes improvements to Smart Replies that are supposed to make them better while also saving a little power. The Pixel Watch 3 gets the Smart Replies tweaks, but no gesture controls. Pixel Watch 2 is also eligible for Wear OS 6.1, but so far as I can tell, all it brings to Google\u2019s second-gen watch are some security fixes. The first-gen Pixel Watch got its last guaranteed update<\/a> in October, so it doesn\u2019t benefit from Wear OS 6.1 at all.<\/p>\n Withholding some new features from previous-gen hardware is inevitable. Sometimes an older piece of tech lacks necessary hardware components, or doesn\u2019t have the headroom to support a new feature without tanking performance or battery life. The Pixel Watch 4 does run on a newer chipset than the Pixel Watch 3, but the Watch 4\u2019s Qualcomm SW5150 uses the same Cortex-A55 CPU as the Watch 3\u2019s SW5100, and the two share the same clock speeds. The main benefits of the newer chip are that it\u2019s smaller and more power-efficient \u2014 important in a smartwatch, to be sure, but not strictly relevant here. Both watches have the same 2GB of RAM, as well.<\/p>\n And while the Pixel Watch 4 has a newer chipset than the Pixel Watch 3, the Pixel Watch 3 and Watch 2 share the same chipset (and RAM), which makes the absence of Wear OS 6.1\u2019s Smart Reply improvements on the Watch 2 look pretty strange.<\/p>\n I asked Google whether there are technical reasons the new pinch-and-flick gestures are exclusive to the Pixel Watch 4 and whether they\u2019ll make their way to older Pixel Watch models in the future. A representative told me that the company always tries to bring new features to previous-gen devices \u201cwhen possible,\u201d a response that doesn\u2019t really answer either question.<\/p>\n This doesn\u2019t seem like a technical problem<\/p>\n Kaitlyn Cimino \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n Versions of these gesture controls have existed on smartwatches from other manufacturers for years. Samsung first incorporated gesture control in 2023\u2019s One UI 5 Watch as an accessibility feature, with options to trigger actions by pinching your fingers or making a fist. Apple has had a similar system, called AssistiveTouch, since the release of watchOS 8 in 2021. Both manufacturers have since positioned these options as convenience features that benefit all users, whether or not they strictly need them for accessibility.<\/p>\n I don’t care what version of Android my smartwatch is running \u2014 I care about what actually using the watch is like.<\/p>\n Given how similar the Pixel Watch 4 and 3 are internally, along with the fact that Samsung has managed to support one-handed gesture control on Wear OS hardware as old as the Galaxy Watch 4, I\u2019m hard pressed to believe there\u2019s any technical limitation preventing the Pixel Watch 3 (or Pixel Watch 2, for that matter) from supporting Google\u2019s new gesture options.<\/p>\n Raise to Talk<\/a>, a feature that lets you summon Gemini automatically by raising your watch up to your face, skipping hotwords or button presses altogether, is similarly exclusive to Pixel Watch 4 for reasons that aren\u2019t clear.<\/p>\n As someone using a Pixel Watch 3, I\u2019m aggravated that these convenient new features aren\u2019t available to me. This watch is just over a year old, and depending on the configuration, retailed for as much as $499. I understand why reserving spiffy new features for the newest hardware is good for Google \u2014 it incentivizes people to buy the company\u2019s latest products. But this arbitrary feature exclusivity, even when it\u2019s temporary, is flatly bad for consumers.<\/p>\n It also flies in the face of what I thought the entire Pixel project was supposed to be about. This is Google hardware running Google software, with no middleman restricting the flow of updates. If Google\u2019s going to pick and choose which software features each hardware model has access to, for any reason other than compatibility, the prospect of getting priority software updates straight from the source no longer seems like a benefit worth paying attention to. I don\u2019t care what version of Android my smartwatch is running \u2014 I care about what actually using the watch is like.<\/p>\n My Pixel Watch 3 still looks great and still lasts a full day or longer on a charge, and on balance, the Pixel Watch 4 getting a couple of software features that the Watch 3 lacks doesn\u2019t make the older watch any worse. But even if those features make their way to Google\u2019s previous watches down the road, it makes me think twice about buying a new Pixel Watch in the future.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t want to miss the best from Android Authority?<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Pixel-Watch-4-Watch-Face-1-scaled.jpg\"\/ "\\"Pixel")
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