Back in the dark days of 2016, just the idea that Google would make its own hardware was a rumor. That is, of course, until that October when the firm announced its first "Pixel, Phone by Google" handsets. Every October since then, there"s been a Made by Google event, where the company announces new smartphones along with some other products.
And every year, there are once again rumors that the Mountain View firm is going to release a Pixel smartwatch. Those rumors are wrong, year after year. According to a new report from Business Insider (via Android Central), now we know why. As it turns out, Google did have plans to build its own smartwatch, but it canceled those plans back in 2016.
Apparently, the product just had a bunch of issues, such as with syncing with phones. Google"s SVP of hardware Rick Osterloh didn"t want a peripheral product tarnishing the Pixel brand. According to the report, the plans were only salvaged with the LG Watch Style and Watch Sport later on.
Google really doesn"t do much work with Wear OS anymore, pushing out minor new features here and there. Android Wear was first announced in March 2014, and version 2.0 arrived in February 2017. It was rebranded to Wear OS a year and a half ago, and there hasn"t been much news since. But with the wearable operating system seemingly not much of a priority for the company, any first-party hardware seems unlikely.