Owning a Pixel smartphone or Pixel Watch has its perks — Google pledges to prioritize its own devices when it comes to software support and feature additions — and the company’s March 2023 Pixel Feature Drop did not disappoint. Aside from incremental updates to Android, which are available to the large number of smartphones and tablets that run the operating system, Google releases software updates just for Pixel devices. These are known as quarterly Pixel Feature Drops, since they are released every three months. The exact contents of each Pixel Feature Drop varies from update-to-update, but they generally include bug fixes, new features, and other improvements.
For this specific update, users had an idea of what to expect, courtesy of a strange bug in February that garnered Google’s attention. When playing a specific clip of Alien on YouTube, Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 devices would immediately crash. Some users thought that the issue had to do with the way Google Tensor chips process color, since Android has had issues with certain colors and images in the past. But Google quelled fears when the issue suddenly corrected itself without an update, something that Screen Rant was able to confirm. However, Google added that a fix would be included in the March Pixel Feature Drop, which was released on March 13.
Related: How To Enable Spatial Audio On The Pixel 6 & Pixel 7
7 More Customization Options For Pixel Watch
Though it won’t be available right at launch, Pixel Watch users will get a few new customizable settings in the coming weeks. The changes will apply to Wear OS 3+, which is the operating system that powers the Pixel Watch. The new settings will let users tweak the audio and video preferences on their Pixel Watch, including the ability to enable mono-audio, color correction, and grayscale modes. This can rectify the disorientation that might come from listening to stereo audio modes, and the new display modes support a wider variety of vision preferences.
6 Fall Detection On Pixel Watch
Google’s bringing Fall Detection to the Pixel Watch. The feature can track the wearer’s movement and determine whether they’ve taken a hard fall, similar to a feature by the same name on the Apple Watch. If the Pixel Watch wearer is unresponsive after taking the hard fall, the smartwatch can automatically initiate a call with first responders to get help. Google says that the feature uses the motion sensors within the Pixel Watch and on-device machine learning to detect a hard fall, and adds that it knows the difference between a fall and a high-intensity workout.
When a Pixel Watch detects a hard fall, it will wait 30 seconds to see if it detects the wearer’s movement afterward. If no movement is detected, it will vibrate, sound an alarm, and notify the wearer. Users can either tap the ‘I’m OK’ option to dismiss the notification or tap the ‘I fell and need help’ option to contact emergency services. If the user doesn’t respond for about a minute, the Pixel Watch will send an automated message to emergency services that shares the user’s current location and asks for help.
5 Timer Integration Across Pixel And Nest Devices
Another part of Google’s pitch to users is great hardware and software integration, and that gets better with the latest feature drop. Google will now be able to show users timers on all their devices, regardless of which one was used to set the timer. For example, if a user asks their Google Nest Hub to set a timer, they’ll also see the progress of the timer on their Pixel smartphone. The same goes for their Pixel Watch, and so on. It’s a minor feature that can have big quality-of-life implications.
4 Health Connect App Adds Heath & Fitness Tracking
Google’s Health Connect app now comes as stock on Pixel devices, and will serve as the home for a user’s health and fitness data. All the data is stored on-device, and the app includes a settings menu that allows users to manage how their health and fitness data is shared. From this central application, users can see what apps or services are collecting their fitness information. It can also share a user’s heath and fitness data, if needed. The update unifies health and fitness data on Pixel smartphones, and aims to provide a similar experience to the Apple Heath app on iPhone.
3 Direct My Call Helps Navigate Automated Menus
Most people have experienced frustrating conversations with automated menus while calling toll-free business numbers, and Google wants to make this experience painless with Direct My Call. The feature is available on the Pixel 4a and newer, but it’ll only work with certain toll-free numbers in the U.S. While calling supported toll-free numbers, users will see the menu options before they’re spoken so they can get to the right extension faster than usual.
2 Magic Eraser Comes To All Pixel Phones
In a surprise move last month, Google announced that Magic Eraser would be available on iOS and Android devices for Google One subscribers. The company heavily marketed Magic Eraser as a computational photography feature worth switching to Pixel for, so making the feature available to all users with a subscription came as a shock. Now, Google’s making it right for Pixel users that still own older devices. While Magic Eraser was originally limited to newer smartphones, all Pixel devices can now use Magic Eraser in the Google Photos app for free. That means they can remove unwanted elements of a photo or change the color and brightness of an object, so it blends in.
1 Faster Night Sight On Pixel 6 Series
Pixel phones are known for their photography prowess, and a lot of that comes from computational photography features. These are software-based elements of photography that often utilize artificial intelligence or machine learning. Night Sight, the Pixel technology that improves low-light photography, is getting better on more devices following the March Pixel Feature Drop. Google first brought faster Night Sight to the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro lineup last year, cutting the normal exposure time in half. Essentially, that means Pixel users won’t have to hold still for as long when trying to take great photos at night or in low-light conditions.
More: All The Pixel Phones That Will Get Android 14 (& The Ones That Won’t)
