Google explains new packaging design, unboxes Pixel Watch 3 [Gallery]

With this year’s hardware devices, Google has an entirely new uniform packaging. In detailing the design, Google gives us a Pixel Watch 3 unboxing today. 

It’s 100% plastic-free, with Google announcing that goal in October of 2020 — 94% free at the time — with a 2025 deadline. The company is a year early and developed “fiber-based alternatives” to shrink wrap, plastic tape, and labels. 

Boxes for the Pixel 9 series, including the 9 Pro Fold, Pixel Watch 3, Google TV Streamer, 4th-gen Nest Learning Thermostat, Pixel Buds Pro 2, and 45W Charger are made of a new paper that is “three times stronger and approximately 70 percent more stretchable than our previous paper,” with everything being lighter.

Inside the box, our new molded fiber pulp formula — which helps keep your device safe — is made in part from recycled newspaper. And its speckled look perfectly complements the new paper.

The box itself is cardboard brown with a “visually speckled texture and an uncoated surface.” Google found that “something that looks natural can easily be identified as recyclable.” 

We really wanted to have a solution where any user could put the entire pack in a recycling bin, and it’s going to get recycled correctly.

There’s a sleeve over said box that features a “peelable closure label” that makes it “easy to see if it’s been tampered with.”

Meanwhile, we more or less have a full Pixel Watch 3 unboxing. After sliding off the first sleeve, you get another that houses two boxes. The bottom square one is for the Pixel Watch 3 pebble. Google touts a “gift-like reveal” given the “translucent, rectangular piece of protective paper that wraps around and overlaps at the front of the product.”

Underneath that is the charging puck. The other box above houses the band, with standalone accessories getting a similar treatment. So far, each Pixel Watch generation has seen a new box design.

Earlier this year, Google released Plastic-Free Packaging Design Guide so that other companies can do the same. It has been updated with design, engineering and operational insights from the new box style.