New Pixel Watch 2 codename leaks, evidence gives hints of its design

Google launched the first Pixel Watch in October last year. Since this was the first wearable with a Google logo on it, we didn’t know how the company would follow it up. Would it release a new watch every year alongside its new Pixel smartphones? Or would it opt for every other year? We simply didn’t know at the time.

As we get further into 2023, though, we’re starting to see enough evidence to support the idea of a Google Pixel Watch 2 landing in October alongside the Pixel 8 series. Today, we have some new evidence of the watch’s existence, along with some hints about what it could look like (via 9to5Google).

According to 9to5Google’s APK teardown of the Google app, a codename for the Pixel Watch 2 is “eos.” This joins the previously leaked codename “aurora.” Both names reference the goddess of the dawn in Greek and Roman mythology, respectively. Theoretically, one of these codenames refers to the Google Pixel Watch with Wi-Fi connectivity only, and the other to the model that supports LTE connections. Google did this last year, with each variant of the Pixel Watch having slightly different codenames.

The references to “eos” in the Google app also connect with help guides on using the Pixel Watch 2. Interestingly, these guides include imagery that are carbon copies of those for the original Pixel Watch. You can check out an example of this in the animation clip below.

Google Pixel Watch 2: Will it look just like the original?

Now, there are two possible explanations for the video clip you see above. The first is the most obvious and probably most likely: Google is using this as a temporary placeholder for updated animations. This would explain why this imagery is lifted from the original Pixel Watch.

Another theory, though, is that there’s no need to update the animations because the Google Pixel Watch 2 is going to look exactly like the Pixel Watch. This is not out of the question, especially when you consider Google just today launched metal bands for the Pixel Watch that land at $200 each. It wouldn’t make sense for Google to do that if the Pixel Watch 2 wouldn’t also support those bands. As such, it’s very possible the Pixel Watch 2 will look identical to the Pixel Watch, or at least close enough that today’s watch bands will still work.

We’ll know more about this as we get closer to the fall. We’ll probably know everything about the Pixel Watch 2 before the end of the summer, assuming Google hasn’t done anything about it’s notoriously leaky departments.