Google Pixel Watch

Some Pixel Watch owners are seeing the back panel fall off without clear cause

Ben Schoon | Jun 3 2023 - 8:45 am PT

The Pixel Watch is Google’s first smartwatch, and while there’s a lot to like about it, it also certainly has its flaws. For some owners, though, there’s an unexpected problem with the Pixel Watch, with the back panel just randomly popping off.

As highlighted by the folks over at Android Police, there’s a growing number of Pixel Watch owners who are seeing the back panel of their watch fall off without a clear explanation. In isolation, this wouldn’t be much of a concern, but there have been a growing number of reports over the past month or two, just after the 6-month anniversary of the watch’s release date.

There are several threads on Reddit and Twitter dealing with this problem, with owners all finding that the back panel is falling off seemingly due to problems with the adhesive used to attach the panel. In some cases, the panel fell of as the watch was removed from its magnetic charging dock.

The good news here is that, for one, this doesn’t seem too widespread. But, beyond that, most folks who have run into the problem have been able to get it rightfully replaced by Google under warranty, though at least one user ran into a problem that involved a $300 payment for the warranty replacement. We’d expect that, as the issue is now getting a spotlight, Google will continue to replace affected watches without much fuss.

Notably, the Pixel Watch isn’t the only Wear OS watch that’s suffered through a problem like this. Fossil’s Gen 4 and Gen 5 hardware used charging rings that were attached with an adhesive and, especially as watches aged, would randomly just fall out. The issue was particularly widespread, to the point where Fossil’s Gen 6 generation introduced a design tweak to fix the problem. It’s even a problem that some Apple Watch owners have encountered.

While, again, this doesn’t seem like a very widespread issue, it’s something we hope Google’s Pixel Watch 2 makes some tweak to prevent from happening again.

Update 6/3: Google has confirmed in a statement to 9to5Google that it is working to fix this problem and identify the cause. The issue apparently impacts a “very small” number of Pixel Watch owners.

We’re aware of a very small number of Google Pixel Watch users having an issue with the glass on the back of the watch. We’re working to identify its cause and rectify the situation as quickly as possible.