The Pixel Watch 4 might not become e-waste if you damage it

This would be an important upgrade, even if it’s not flashy. That glass dome on Google’s watches is just begging to get cracked or scratched—it’s standard Gorilla Glass rather than the sapphire glass you see on Apple and Samsung watches. For the first three models, a cracked screen or dissolving glue on the bottom has meant that the watch was effectively e-waste. Even if you were willing to pay Google to repair it, that was not an option.

Google never had a satisfactory answer for this approach to wearables. In lieu of repairs, it offered a protection plan, which guaranteed you a replacement watch if yours was damaged. For $4 per month and $49 per incident, Google would simply send a new watch. And it would actually be new; there are no officially refurbished Pixel Watches because Google doesn’t repair them.

Not supporting repairs was a bizarre decision for a company that so often promotes its commitment to sustainability. Google has, at times, fallen short of those ideals, perhaps most notably with the defective batteries in its A-series Pixel phones. But that’s at least theoretically an unforeseeable outcome. Google intentionally designed the Pixel Watches such that they could not be repaired.

Google should never have released a single watch that couldn’t be repaired, let alone three of them. Hopefully, this report is accurate, and Google will right this wrong with the Pixel Watch 4.