The Pixel Watch was one of the long-awaited novelties of Google I/O 2022. After repeated twists and turns in recent years, the Mountain View firm presented its first smartwatch and it was far from impressive. Not only because the design of the device had already been leaked, but also because of the lack of details about its technical specifications: One of its main peculiarities is in this last point: the watch would arrive with a four-year-old processor.

As reported by 9to5Google, the Pixel Watch will use an Exynos 9110 chip. It is a component launched in August 2018 that debuted in the original version of Samsung’s Galaxy Watch. The South Korean company also used it in subsequent versions of its smartwatch; among them, the Galaxy Watch Active and Active 2 —both launched in 2019— and the Galaxy Watch 3 of 2020.

For the Galaxy Watch 4 family unveiled in 2021, Samsung leaned toward the Exynos W920, and there was much speculation that the same processor would make it to the Pixel Watch. After all, the alliance between Google and the Asians in terms of software with the merger of Tizen and Wear OS could be considered as part of a broader strategy that also involved hardware. But it seems that is not the case, at least for now.

On the technical side, the Exynos 9110 chip has been developed with a 10-nanometer process and has two Cortex-A53 cores. Today it is impossible to know what kind of performance or energy efficiency it can give the Pixel Watch, assuming that it does indeed power it since the Samsung smartwatches that implemented it used Tizen and not the new Wear OS.

Is Google risking too much by launching the Pixel Watch with such old hardware?

Until Google presents the full specifications of the Pixel Watch, everything we say about it will be based on speculation. However, the implementation of a processor within four years of years could be more by necessity than by choice.

Rumors of a smartwatch developed by Google have been around since at least 2018. Californians were expected to officially present it in 2019, but that ultimately did not happen. It was even said that its launch was canceled at the last minute because it did not meet the company’s internal standards or expectations.

But beyond lowering the thumb to that first version, the engineers would have been inclined to continue development based on the same chipset. According to 9to5Google estimates, changing this component for a more modern one could have resulted in an even more significant delay in the presentation of the Pixel Watch.

The debut of the Pixel Watch on the market will take place in the fall, along with the new Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro that Google already showed at its recent developer conference. It is expected that as the weeks go by there will be more news regarding the specifications and the price of the smartwatch; there we will see if, indeed, those from Mountain View have chosen to equip it with the Exynos 9110, and if there is a possibility that a version with more recent and powerful hardware will be launched later. If the device does indeed come with a four-year-old chip, it probably won’t stand a chance of challenging the Apple Watch for too much market share. Although it will be interesting to see how it behaves in performance and efficiency against other exponents with Wear OS, especially those manufactured by Samsung.