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The Pixel Watches haven’t been the perfect competitor to the Apple Watch that we’d hoped. They look beautiful, they’re reasonably smooth, but lack performance and battery life compared to their competitors from Samsung and Apple, unless you get the larger-sized Pixel Watch 3. Something Pixel fans have been eagerly anticipating is when Google’s smartwatch will make the switch to a custom Tensor SoC like its Pixel phones, and it seems that may finally happen in 2026.
Read our review
Review: Google’s Pixel Watch 3 is big, beautiful, and brainy
The 45mm version is large and easy to love
Google first introduced Tensor with the Pixel 6 series, and it marked a new direction for the company’s hardware. Tensor has never been about pure horsepower, instead focusing on efficiency and AI features. That’s led to the Pixel phones offering a smooth and (mostly) efficient experience, although it hasn’t been without issues, largely due to the reliance on Samsung to manufacture these chips, something that might finally change in the next year or two.
The Pixel Watch’s Pixel 6 moment
Could AI come to our wrists?
Leaked documents from Google’s chip division surfaced recently, and Android Authority has spotted a juicy tidbit within them — Google is finally bringing Tensor to wearables. There are a lot of details, but what we do know is that the wearable chip, codenamed NPT, will be released in 2026 and will consist of a single ARM Cortex-A78 and two Cortex-A55s. While those aren’t the newest cores in the world, they’re newer than what you’ll find in the latest Snapdragon wearable chip.
More important is the node these chips will be built upon. While this isn’t mentioned in the documents, we can make a good guess, thanks to the leaks surrounding Tensor G5 and G6, which will share the same 3nm process as Apple’s latest chips. We can hope, then, that the NPT will also use that same process, which could lead to incredible battery life gains.
The Pixel 6 marked a new era for Google’s phones with the move to Tensor, and this could be the equivalent step for the Pixel Watch. Google is pushing AI and Gemini as hard as possible, but it’s missing from its wearables. Could the move to a Tensor chip bring Gemini and other AI features to our wrists? Only time will tell, but it looks like we have a lot to look forward to from Google’s future hardware.
Google Pixel Watch 3
It might not have its own custom SoC yet, but the new Pixel Watch 3 is still worth a closer look for anyone in the Android ecosystem — especially the larger 45mm variant introduced this year, which helps with battery life by accomodating a larger power cell.