Few superfans have been treated worse over the years than folks who fly the Wear OS flag. The strong and passionate core that’s stuck by Google’s harebrained wearable efforts has suffered years of indignities and indifference, with many waiting and hoping for a “holy grail” in the form of a Google-made Pixel smartwatch. Recent leaks indicate it’s finally going to happen, but this is a make-or-break moment, and Google can’t afford to mess things up — as it has with so many of its recent hardware products.

Almost a decade of Wear OS disappointments

In 2014, Wear OS (then Android Wear) was much hyped, but when products finally landed, it felt like an also-ran — amusing, maybe, when it came to the novelty of strapping a computer to your wrist, but limited in its utility. The product category never really lived up to its promises and no one really understood that the future of wearables lay with health and fitness tracking. With the wrong focus from the outset, the smartwatch market didn’t take off in the way so many smartphone companies expected it to. As noted in a prior retrospective, many of the brands that participated early on, like Motorola and Sony, gave up after just a few models.

In fact, one of the few companies that deeply invested in the platform ultimately had to give up smartphones altogether. LG was one of the few stalwarts that stuck it out with Google, starting early on with the first G Watch and kicking off the round OLED designs with the G Watch R and Urbane. The LG Watch Style was arguably one of the most attractive Google-powered wearables ever made (and the new Pixel Watch seems like it’s picking up a few design cues from it, based on leaks). LG even experimented with things like analog watch hands in the LG Watch W7 hybrid, playing with the format in ways other manufacturers never did — by all appearances, LG actually cared about it.

The LG G Watch Style — expensive and missing features, but one of the most attractive Wear OS devices to date.

Other brands like Fossil have seen far more success by basing multiple models off reference platforms, with sub-brands like Skagen and others all basically making the same product in a different case. So far as we can tell, Fossil’s models at one point seemed like the most popular (at least, among our readers) until Samsung’s market share took off last year, riding the success of the Wear OS 3-exclusive Galaxy Watch4 series. For other Wear OS brands, Google giving Samsung exclusivity for the snazzy new platform must have felt like a betrayal.

Ignoring specific models, Wear OS’s early history is littered with delays and failed promises, and the few things it did do well were things that customers didn’t actually care about. Focusing so heavily on standalone functionality may have helped product managers convince themselves they could compete with Apple, but few customers actively wanted a standalone Android experience strapped to their wrist. Delayed updates and missing features like automatic exercise tracking, paired with disappointing (if not substandard) chipsets, all contributed to a “nerds-only” vibe.

Sure, you could hack Minecraft onto it, but when the market finally settled on applications like fitness and health (and even just basic notifications), other products delivered a better experience. For some, it’s only recently with Wear OS 3.0 that it’s even felt vaguely usable — and even then, the promised Google Assistant functionality still isn’t here yet. I wish that were an exception, but Wear OS fans are used to interminably waiting on vague promises now.

Perhaps no single tech fan group has suffered more over the years than Wear OS proponents. In 2020, Sundar Pichai called out smartwatches as one of the few places where Google hasn’t done “opinionated” work to lead by example and better guide the ecosystem. Eight years into the effort is a little late to get started, and given Google’s other recent hardware efforts, I think the company might only have one shot to get things right.

Google’s product problem

Last year was challenging for Google. On the one hand, the Pixel 6 was almost universally praised in early reviews, seeming to finally deliver an uncompromising experience after over a decade of attempts. But after it landed, the Pixel 6 proved to be just another in a long line of Google smartphones with post-release issues. Between hardware problems with everything from signal strength and dropped calls to the fingerprint sensor, Google’s failure to fix things in a timely manner, and its apparent inability to even keep up with the basic monthly update commitment otherwise guaranteed to Pixel owners, the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro proved they weren’t exceptions to the long-standing rule: Pixels are buggy. And one recent report indicates the Pixel’s buggy reputation is already bleeding over into the mainstream.

This reputation seems to be impacting Google’s other hardware categories as well, with 2021’s Nest-branded smart home products being similarly panned for easily preventable issues and questionable design and product philosophies. I’m not afraid to say that my Nest Cam (Battery) is probably number two on the list of tech purchases I most regret behind the Ouya, with its dumb proprietary charging cable, awful alert sensitivity, poor battery life, inconsistent video quality, sky-high price, and the frustrating and pointless paywalling of on-device features. And almost all of those same complaints extend to the new battery-powered Nest Doorbell. At launch, you couldn’t even reliably open alert notifications if you were “too fast,” and the Google Home app would have to be killed and restarted to play the alert’s associated recordings.

The Google Pixel 6 Pro sitting on a log in the forest

Google's Pixel problem could easily bleed over to a Pixel Watch.

Google has a serious and well-documented problem of releasing products before they’re ready, with half-baked features or painfully obvious flaws. But, like a high school essay a student simply wants out the door, someone at Google seems to think it’s better to get things on shelves in some kind of usable state rather than waiting for the issues to be ironed out, ignoring one of the most important product mantras: First impressions are everything.

In the face of repeated hardware stumbles, what are the odds Google can actually deliver on a Pixel Watch that isn’t loaded with problems on day one? The company had the foresight to cancel a Google Watch in 2016 because it was apparently awful, but I think it’s fair to be skeptical about plans in 2022, given the state of the company’s products just last year.

Don’t mess it up

Hopes are concerningly high right now. Following the Fitbit acquisition, Google’s own smartwatch could have all sorts of extra functionality that Wear OS previously lacked — especially when it comes to sportier applications. For many, wearables are first and foremost for fitness, and it took over half a decade for Wear OS to even start playing catch-up there.

Anecdotally, my Galaxy Watch4 (running Wear OS 3.0) can’t even reliably tell when I’ve started working out on my elliptical, and the simple act of toweling my face or opening a water bottle is sometimes enough to falsely convince it that I’m done. What little Wear OS can do when it comes to fitness simply adds to the work of using it. As Android Police alum David Ruddock noted in his Apple Watch experiments, Apple “is a company that wants to understand what it can do to make managing your health and lifestyle more informed, more fun, and like less of a chore.” When he called Wear OS “one step below actually dumb,” it might seem harsh, but it’s frankly pretty fair, even when it comes to Samsung’s recent Wear OS 3.0 exclusive hardware.

Fitness isn’t the platform’s only shortcoming. Every Wear OS device to date has had dumb issues like mediocre-to-awful battery life, janky and underpowered hardware, and a lack of software vision that simultaneously pushes developers to deliver apps that might make the platform good when Google itself barely cares.

Prior Pixel Watch leaks.

I’m not a Wear OS superfan, but I am a die-hard Android user who would like to find a way to extend that love to a compatible wearable platform that deserves it. To date, however, Wear OS simply has too many issues and shortcomings. Although I revisit it almost every year (buying new hardware I almost immediately regret each time), the drawbacks and problems leave me simultaneously envious of the Apple Watch and upset at the lack of progress in both software and hardware that’s been made on Wear.

The Pixel Watch isn’t just an opportunity to turn that around; it’s pretty much a requirement. With the Pixel’s consistent reputation of issues preceding it every year, a Google-made wearable has one chance to dodge that association, if it carries the name. Google simply can’t mess this up.

By all appearances, Google seems to have taken its time, with rumblings of a Pixel Watch dating back years now — and that’s ignoring the canceled 2016 Google Watch. But as the Pixel Watch's expected launch nears, if there are any lingering little issues, update concerns, or tiny hardware problems that still remain, I’d rather see Google delay this release than drop another half-baked product. Messing up with Wear OS yet again could be the last nail in the coffin and finally force even the platform’s biggest fans to start looking elsewhere.