Here’s how Google breaks down the Pixel Watch’s 24-hour battery life

Smartwatch battery life can vary an awful lot. If you use one to exercise with the heart rate monitor and GPS constantly active, the battery will drain in a matter of hours, compared to the several days that’s sometimes possible if you turn every function off.

Google is the latest company to roll out its own smartwatch, rivalling the Apple Watch Series 8 and Samsung Galaxy Watch 5. At first, the search giant said its Pixel Watch had a 24-hour battery life, but didn’t elaborate beyond saying how this estimate is an approximation based on using pre-production hardware and software.

Now though, Google has added much more detail about exactly how the Pixel Watch can survive for a full 24 hours – which, let’s not forget, is six hours longer than the Apple Watch Series 8.

A page on Google’s Pixel Watch help website states how the Pixel Watch lasts for 24 hours when used to do the following tasks:

• 240 notifications
• 280 time checks
• A five-minute LTE phone call
• A 45-minute workout, using LTE and GPS, while playing music downloaded from YouTube
• 50 minutes of Google Maps navigation while connected to a phone with Bluetooth

To achieve this, the Pixel Watch was left in its default settings with the always-on display switched off. In other words, the time is only shown when the wrist is raised or the watch’s screen is tapped.

Although the always-on display is off by default, Pixel Watch owners setting up the device for the first time are prompted to switch the function on, making the watch more convenient buy reducing its battery life.

We welcome Google publishing this information, as it can act as a useful guide. However, smartwatch battery life depends a lot on how the device is used, and some owners will see far greater battery life than others.