(Credit: Eric Zeman/PCMag)
Google is expanding the limited one-handed gesture controls available on Pixel Watches.
Apple Watch and Samsung Galaxy smartwatches have included gesture controls for a few years, and Google is now catching up. It first introduced Raise to Talk functionality earlier this year for the Pixel Watch 4 as a new way to activate the Gemini AI assistant. Now, Google is expanding gesture controls to other parts of the watch, but they remain exclusive to its latest model.
Double pinch is the biggest change, allowing you to tap your thumb and forefinger together twice in quick succession. The gesture will either pick up or hang up phone calls, pause timers, snooze alarms, activate the camera shutter, and more. It will be dynamic and dependent on what your smartwatch is notifying you about.
Another new feature is called Wrist turn, which Google says is helpful for dismissing phone calls when you don't want to pick up the phone.
These new options will appear in Settings > Gestures > Hand gestures, where you can turn them on or off. The watch will also remind you to use these gestures, which you can turn off in this menu. Google is also adding a new tutorial to explain how Raise to Talk works on the watch.
It's unclear whether Google will bring these features to older smartwatches.
Alongside improved gesture controls, Google is also introducing what it calls “smarter smart replies" for the Pixel Watch 3 and Pixel Watch 4. A new language model will suggest replies that work twice as fast as before and use half the battery.
"The quality and preference rate are also enhanced: in a blind study, 97% of users found the quality equal to or better than before," Google says.
All of these new features will be ready "just in time for the holidays," Google says, though an exact release date for the new features was not announced.