Yesterday’s big Pixel Feature Drop for March touched on all of Google’s devices, including the Pixel Watch line. We shared all that is new in this post, so be sure to check that out to see what’s coming to your wrist.
As a part of Google’s announcement, they also confirmed that the update brings the Pixel Watch line up to Wear OS 5.1, which is noteworthy for the fact that it jumps each watch from Android 14 to Android 15. While there may not be any massive changes included from 14 to 15, it’s certainly an upgrade at the API level.
There is some confusion about the update and when it will rollout to which devices. On Google’s official community post about the update, they say specifically that “All Pixel Watch devices will receive the March 2025 software update, which includes Wear OS 5.1, beginning today.” For now, they are suggesting that the Pixel Watch, Pixel Watch 2, and Pixel Watch 3, and their LTE and Bluetooth/WiFi models, will be upgraded to Wear OS 5.1 this month.
The version numbers for this update are as follows:
- Pixel Watch 1: BP1A.250305.019.W2
- Pixel Watch 2 & 3: BP1A.250305.019.W3
That said, Google has only posted the Wear OS 5.1 factory image and OTA files for Pixel Watch 2 and Pixel Watch 3’s Bluetooth/WiFi models at the time of this post. They are saying that the update will rollout over the “next few weeks” in phases depending on carrier and device.
In addition to only those files going live at the moment, the Android Developers page for the Wear OS 5.1 release only references the builds for the Pixel Watch 2 and 3 Bluetooth/WiFi models. That page lists the following features to explore on 5.1:
- Credential manager support: The Credential Manager API provides a unified authentication solution, supporting sign-in flows using passwords, passkeys, and federated identity (such as Sign In with Google). A user’s credentials are stored in a credential provider, which syncs account information across devices.
- Watch speaker playback: On devices that support media playback through the watch speaker, users can select this speaker as their preferred media output option if your app integrates with the Wear Output Switcher.
We’ll update this post if anything changes and when Google posts the files for all of the other watches.
As always, you can perform this old Wear OS update trick to grab the updates right away.
