Future Pixel Watches have three potential hardware paths, but I hope Google doesn't go with the most likely one

Google has at least three potential paths forward for designing the hardware for future Pixel Watches: Arm-powered Tensor, open-source RISC-V, or Oryon-powered Snapdragon Wear.

I can't tell you which of these options would be best, but one option — Tensor — would disappoint me if its leaked design is real. And it seems to be Google's most likely path to take.

On Monday, news leaked of Google's potential plans to create a custom wearable Tensor chip for the Pixel Watch 5 in 2026, using similar Arm cores to the ones found in the Galaxy Watch 7's Exynos W1000 SoC.

This took me by surprise, given the announcement last year that Qualcomm and Google will use RISC-V for future Wear OS hardware. Just last week, when I spoke with the Qualcomm VP of wearables, he explained that they're still "working on it" right now with Google, trying to get Wear OS software running smoothly on open-source hardware instead of Arm cores.

Android Authority's Kamila Wojciechowska explained that this leaked "NPT" Tensor chip was envisioned in early 2023, with RISC-V considered an "alternative" at the time. Things could have changed between then and the Qualcomm announcement. However, there are reasons to believe that Google might get cold feet and relapse to a typical wearable strategy: copy Samsung and save money.

The perks and risks of a RISC-V Pixel Watch

Our RISC-V explainer runs through all the potential upsides of this technology. To summarize, RISC-V gives each action its own separate instruction that's more complicated to code but speeds up the local processing time.

It's fully open-source — escaping Arm's licensing — very modular, and capable of supporting specialized platforms with better performance and efficiency than traditional cores originally designed for phones with a "full feature set."

If Google made a Tensor chip with custom RISC-V silicon instead of Arm cores, that would be an exciting change, giving the Pixel Watch 4 a unique path to compete with Samsung's self-made Exynos tech.

I already alluded to one major downside of RISC-V: in my interview with Qualcomm VP Dino Bekis, he noted that making RISC-V hardware for Wear OS was the easy part, but designing those specialized software instructions is proving to be a challenge. Google might decide this process is more trouble than it's worth in the long term, when Arm is the standard most devs use.

Another problem is less technical and more political: the New York Times reported in January that RISC-V "has become a central tool for Chinese companies and government institutions hoping to match U.S. prowess in designing semiconductors."

Because of its open-source design, RISC-V can get around U.S. export controls that currently apply to Arm cores beyond "certain performance limits," since you can't easily restrict open-source software from a particular nation. A U.S. House subcommittee recommended in late 2023 that the Department of Commerce "determine whether the promulgation of open-source microelectronic architectures, like RISC-V, pose a risk to U.S. national security or supply chain security."

Most Big Tech companies are risk-averse; Google, which is no exception, could decide to bail on this open-source standard if there's even a chance that the U.S.-China rivalry could derail RISC-V. It would make all of their transitional efforts pointless, and they'd have to go back to Arm (or Qualcomm) anyway.

Google did drop Android kernel support for RISC-V in April, but confirmed at the time that "Android will continue to support RISC-V." We simply don't know whether "support" will go as far as Google using RISC-V itself in a major product.

Watching the Arm-Qualcomm legal fallout

In theory, Qualcomm and Google will continue to partner closely on future Wear OS hardware. The Pixel Watch 3 and 2 used the Snapdragon W5 Gen 1, and Qualcomm's Dino Bekis implied at the Snapdragon Summit that we'll see their "next" chip in 2025, possibly the W5 Gen 2.

In theory, that chip could use custom Oryon cores, similar to those found in the Snapdragon 8 Elite but optimized to an even lower power demand. Bekis himself said Qualcomm intentionally started with PCs before scaling down to mobile, and that wearables are the next (challenging) step. They want to support Wear OS hitting "a week's worth of battery life" with RISC-V or Oryon.

At the same time, the Arm-Qualcomm legal battle has the potential to go nuclear and derail Qualcomm's entire business model. Qualcomm's custom software relies on designs acquired from Nuvia; if Arm successfully argues that Nuvia (and by extension, Qualcomm) is in breach of contract by using privileged Arm IP, then that would scuttle Oryon and plenty of other things at Qualcomm.

We don't know how this legal battle will shake out, but it's yet another example of hardware that Google might decide it can't rely on. Enter Plan C: Google Tensor and Arm.

The Pixel Watch 5 sure looks underpowered

I'm not opposed to Google relying on Tensor. Despite their relatively low benchmarks, Tensor CPUs have helped make phones like the Pixel 9 Pro popular bestsellers with great AI performance. Future Wear OS watches will need strong AI, and efficiency is more important than power in wearable form.

But if this leak is true, Google could give the 2026 Pixel Watch 5 one ARM Cortex-A78 core and two ARM Cortex-A55 cores, most likely using a 3nm node.

For context, the 2024 Galaxy Watch 7 and Galaxy Watch Ultra use a 3nm chip with one Cortex-A78 clocked at 1.6GHz and four Cortex-A55 cores clocked at 1.5GHz. Hypothetically, Google's wearable Tensor chip would already be outdated when it arrives in 2026, with Samsung likely shifting to a next-gen Exynos chip by then.

Google started off its wearable strategy locked into using a four-year-old Exynos 9110 chip in its 2022 Pixel Watch, originally designed for the first Galaxy Watch running Tizen OS. It's very good at making software run efficiently on dated cores, to be fair.

"Google knows better than anyone else what it will need to run Wear OS effectively," says Anshel Sag, senior analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. "An A78 would be a performance boost compared to the four A53s that power the Snapdragon W5...That said, it seems that everyone is still using quite old cores from Arm at this point and are all generations behind, which I can only imagine is due to cost."

While Sag shares my concern that this path "could result in a lesser experience in terms of battery life and performance than if Google kept using the latest platforms from Qualcomm," he also noted that he's "not sure Google is selling enough Pixel Watches to justify custom silicon" and that using Arm cores would let it "control its roadmap" better.

If the Pixel Watch 3 can be so excellent with old Arm cores, why not the Watch 4, and Watch 5, and so on?

That's why it makes sense that Google would take the safe route with familiar Arm cores designed with Tensor efficiency and cost considerations in mind. But that doesn't make me feel less disappointed at the idea: it makes me worried about the future of Wear OS innovation if, years from now, Google is still designing its software with significant hardware limitations in mind.