Here are the nine photos of a “pixel watch” – and a crazy story

Our first look at what appears to be the Google Pixel Watch comes under strange circumstances: someone reportedly found their prototype lying around at a restaurant and sent in pictures of it Android Central on condition of anonymity. The images of the alleged device match what we saw previously leaked renderings, right down to the circular dial, rotating crown, and nearly bezel-less design.

As seen in the photos, a physical crown sits between two buttons on the side of the watch. If it’s something like this Samsung Galaxy Watch 4, the two buttons can be used to turn the watch on or off, return to the home screen, or even as a shortcut to bring up recently used apps. Meanwhile, the little hole next to the crown could be a microphone or maybe an altimeter sensor used to track stair climbing. When Android Central Note: The four pins on the side of the watch can be used for testing purposes and may not appear on the final model.

Picture: Android Central

On the bottom of the watch is a black frame with what looks like an oval health sensor in the middle. Android CentralThe watch’s source also says the bottom of the watch has a smooth feel, noting that it “looks metallic but feels like it’s coated in glass,” much like the glass back the Apple Watch.

Picture: Android Central

Unfortunately, Those from Android Central source couldn’t fully boot the clock to see what the UI might look like. When they tried to turn it on, a white Google logo appeared and nothing happened after that. A charger wasn’t with the watch either, but it was there Android Central Notes, the watch can be charged in its case, just like the Apple Watch and Google’s Fitbit Versa 3 and Sense smartwatches. While there aren’t any images of the strap actually attached to the watch, it looks like it will come with an appropriate method for snapping the straps into place, while the straps themselves are similar to those that come with Fitbit’s line of smartwatches to be delivered.

grid view

Almost more interesting than the watch itself is the story behind it. It’s similar to that The iPhone 4 was leaked back in 2010 — Someone found a prototype iPhone in a restaurant, which was then bought and torn down by gizmodo (the photos of it all mysteriously disappeared gizmodo‘s site, by the way). It turns out a software engineer left the prototype there, so it is clear that such a situation can and does occur.

But the weird thing about this lost and found case is that Google doesn’t even seem to be looking for the device (unlike Apple, who called to get its prototype iPhone back at the time). Of course, there’s always the possibility that this could all be an elaborate ploy by Google to get more publicity for its upcoming watch, as this is all very reminiscent of the time a Pixel 3 XL was found on the back of a Lyft (Did you think we’d forget it already, Google?).

So many questions remain unanswered here, and while the circumstances of the watch’s discovery may never be elucidated, at least the features of the actual watch will. So far we know that Google calls the device Pixel Watch (big surprise there), and we’ll likely hear more details at next month’s Google I/O.