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Pixel Watch with short battery life hinted at by Fitbit app APK teardown
- An APK teardown of the Fitbit app revealed Fitbit is readying support for Google’s Wear OS.
- Certain details discovered in the lines of code potentially reveal what we could expect to see from the Pixel Watch in terms of battery life.
- Based on the data, the battery may only have around 24 hours of life.
In a recent APK (Android Package Kit) teardown, conducted by 9to5Google, the Fitbit app appears to support suspicions about the Pixel Watch and its estimated battery life.
If you’re familiar with Fitbit, then you may know that all of Fitbit’s gadgets have the ability to track your sleep as long as you’re wearing them. Fitbit Premium subscribers can even get personalized insights and recommendations on how to improve their sleep.
During the Pixel Watch’s reveal at Google I/O earlier this year, Google confirmed that the device will include a full suite of Fitbit features, including sleep tracking. It’s the updated data on this feature, found from the APK teardown, that allows us a window into what the smartwatch’s potential battery life may be.
In the data, 9to5Google found that the latest update includes new in-app text related to evening charge reminders for the Pixel Watch. When enabled, the watch will recommend that you charge your device to at least 30% before going to bed.
It’s important to note that an APK teardown focuses on in-progress features. As a result, there’s no guarantee that said features will actually roll out.
While there’s not enough information here to pull out some concrete numbers, the fact that a reminder would need to be there in the first place isn’t exactly reassuring, especially when Fitbit smartwatches don’t have this warning. Also, most people spend around 30% of their 24-hour day sleeping, lending credence to rumors suggesting the watch could have somewhere around a 24-hour battery life.
For a smartwatch you plan on using throughout the day, this isn’t exactly ideal. If your watch is at 10% before you go to bed and you need to charge it, how long would you have to stay up before your watch is ready? Having a fast charging feature could help definitely help in this case. And speaking of charging, will the Pixel Watch come with wireless charging, or will you need a charger by your bed at all times?
We likely won’t get the answers to these questions until we get closer to launch time. But at least it sounds like the Pixel Watch’s battery life could be longer than the 18 hours of battery life you get out of an Apple Watch Series 7.