The Pixel Watch 4 has erased all my battery life worries

Battery life on the Pixel Watch line-up has been on an ascending trend ever since the first watch landed. Even though I’ve been on this positive journey from the Watch to the Watch 2 and Watch 4, I still wasn’t ready for how awesome the Pixel Watch 4 has turned out to be when it comes to battery life. This is the first time in four years that I can finally let my guard down when it comes to charging my smartwatch, and I’m not alone. My colleagues C. Scott and Kaitlyn noticed it too, and so have many of you, leaving comments here on Android Authority as well as on Reddit (here or here) and other social networks.

If you don’t have a Pixel Watch 4, let me paint you a picture to explain how terrific and game-changing Google’s battery and charging improvements have been this year.

I came to my first Pixel Watch, having worn a Fitbit tracker (One, Flex, Alta HR, Inspire HR) for over a decade. I was used to battery life that lasted five to seven days on average, and I loved not worrying about battery life. Given how forgetful I tend to be and my inability to stick to any routine whatsoever, the choice to plop my tracker on a charger whenever I felt like it once every few days was freeing.

I can’t explain how hand-tied I felt when I got the first Pixel Watch. I had to change my entire personality to keep that watch alive, which you can guess was a lesson in futility. Since the Pixel Watch merely lasted 24 hours on a charge, I had to anxiously think about when and where I would top it off, and yet, I often forgot to do so. I don’t know how many times I noticed the black screen right as I was heading out the door or going to bed. And since some of my days lack any routine (long active days versus boring days at home), it was impossible to keep the watch topped up.

This was compounded by the slow charging, which Google slowed down even further in software updates to avoid overheating on the wireless charger. By the end of the year, I wasn’t getting 24 hours anymore, and I had to keep the watch on the charger for two hours just to top it off. Needless to say, a 10% charge versus usage time was useless, and the two-hour downtime became a thorn in my side every day. When I was traveling, I had to mentally do the math to account for 120 minutes on a charger throughout my busy day. I hated it.

The Pixel Watch 2 slightly improved battery life thanks to better power management on Wear OS and a marginally larger battery, but it drastically cut the charging time, which helped ease my battery panic… but only a little.

With the Pixel Watch 3, the needle moved further ahead. A larger battery on the 45mm model that I picked up, better Wear OS power management, and more battery-efficient watch faces thanks to Watch Face Format meant that I was getting 30+ hours on a charge. Often 40+ hours, even. That’s with the always-on display and tilt-to-wake enabled, but with Ok Google detection turned off.

Plus, it only took about 70 minutes or so to completely top off the watch when it was empty. Since it rarely was, that meant that I only had to find 45-60 minutes in my day to charge my Pixel Watch 3 — a significant improvement over the two hours a day of the original Pixel Watch. That and the 40-hour longevity meant I had more leeway in when I charged my Watch 3 every day. I still forgot to do it a few times, leading to a few nights without sleep tracking, but the whole year was less panicky and anxious than my previous two years with the Watch and Watch 2.

I came to the Pixel Watch 4 expecting a slight improvement over that, but boy, was I wrong. Yes, the battery is larger, Wear OS has been even more optimized, and there are more watch faces that sip on battery instead of wasting it away. And yes, charging is supposedly faster, but the improvements are much better than Google made them out to be in its announcement.

Keeping the same settings as my Pixel Watch 3 (AOD and tilt-to-wake enabled, OK Google detection off, but raise-to-talk with Gemini enabled), I can get two full days of battery life. Meaning I can finally skip (read: forget) charging for a whole day and still have enough battery to carry me to the next one. If you’re as unorganized with your tasks as I am, this is a game-changer.

Better yet, charging is super fast. If I drop my watch at 50% on the charger, I can set a 25-minute timer and pick it up at 100%. I’ve done this several times. There are days when I honestly don’t comprehend how fast it charges. I drop it, forget to set up a timer, lift it “a few minutes later” (according my internal clock) to check where it’s at and set a timer accordingly, only to find the battery already full. How on earth?

Both of these have contributed to easing my battery worries tremendously. I don’t have to organize my charging schedule like a maniac lest I forget to do it and end up with an empty battery. I no longer panic about charging my watch if I have a busy day or a busy weekend. I don’t have to run to my office, where I keep my charging cable, on Saturday evenings before heading out, just because my watch is down to 2% and I haven’t charged it since Friday. All wins in my book.

And look, I’m not saying I wouldn’t want more than 48 hours on a charge or an even faster charging speed — those would always be welcome — but with the current state of affairs, things are finally “good” when it comes to the Pixel Watch 4’s battery experience. It’s not week-long-activity-tracker-level longevity, but it’s no longer make-a-recurring-calendar-event-or-else longevity either. This is undoubtedly one of the many reasons why I feel spoiled and can’t go back to my Pixel Watch 3 anymore. Now my only worry is when we’ll start getting three-in-one wireless chargers that support Qi2.2 and the new Pixel Watch 4’s charging mechanism.