Google Identifies Pixel Watch Battery Drain Bug Across 4 Generations, Promises Fix Soon

Q: If disabling call audio restores battery life, is the real Pixel Watch bug on the watch, the phone, or both?

Most likely, it is a cross-device software issue rather than a bug isolated to only the watch or only the phone. The strongest clue is that turning off Bluetooth “Phone calls” on the paired Pixel phone appears to restore normal battery life on the watch and improve the phone’s battery too. That suggests the drain is tied to how the phone and watch handle the call-audio profile between them. When that option is enabled, the watch can stay in a more active Bluetooth connection state, more like earbuds than a low-power wearable link. If that connection is misbehaving, both devices can pay the battery cost. That does not prove the phone alone is at fault. The watch is clearly part of the problem because it is the device seeing the severe drain, and Google itself has acknowledged a Pixel Watch battery bug and is preparing a software fix. The likely scenario is that a recent software change in the watch, the phone’s Bluetooth stack, or the interaction between the two is causing the watch to hold an unnecessarily active connection for call audio. In practical terms, users should treat it as an ecosystem bug involving the watch-phone pairing path. The workaround points to the call-audio handshake as a likely trigger, but only Google can confirm whether the final fix lands on the watch, the phone, or both. Until then, disabling “Phone calls” is reasonable if battery life matters more than taking calls directly on the watch.

3 articles · Updated · Android Police · Oct 31

Google said it has identified a battery drain issue hitting some Pixel Watch users and is working on a fix, though it gave no release date beyond "as soon as possible."
The problem affects Pixel Watch 2, 3, 4 and 5 models, with users reporting battery life drops severe enough to make the watches unreliable for daily use.
Google described the bug as affecting only a small number of users, but did not say how many devices or what share of owners were impacted.
The acknowledgment came after complaints spread across multiple generations, putting fresh focus on software stability as a key factor in wearable reliability.