Last summer, Google was the first smartwatch company to announce satellite SOS features in late August. At the time, it was a massive deal, as it allowed consumers to send emergency messages directly from their smartwatches to emergency response centers, even outside of cellular range. Well, at least as long as they were in the US.
Of course, as (unfortunate for Google) luck would have it, within two weeks both Garmin & Apple announced similar services, albeit with greater service areas and features, and ultimately beating Google to actually ship said watches/features to consumers. But today Google is starting to turn the tide a bit on that realm.
They’ve announced that their satellite SOS piece for Pixel Watch 4 is now rolling out beyond just the continental United States, specifically now available in the following regions:
United States: Expanding to Alaska and Hawaii
Canada: Adding the whole of Maple Syrup land
Europe: Adding all of these countries: DK, DE, UK, ES, IE, FI, FR, IT, NL, NO, SE, BE, AT, SK, PL, HU, RO, PT, CH, CZ, SI, LV, LT, EE
As with before, this is still run by Garmin’s Emergency Response center (aka Garmin Response), the same one you’d talk to on a Garmin device. That’s good, because it means there’s no ‘learning curve’ on the part of Google for these added regions. It’s something Garmin has been doing for 15 years (fun tidbit, they just published this 2025 SOS recap last week).
Speaking of good news, there’s a few other features coming to the Pixel Watch 4 as well:
Left behind phone reminders, phone lock on disconnect and mobile trusted location via Watch: Pixel Watch works proactively to secure your phone, with instant alerts if you accidentally leave it behind and an automatic lock on your phone the moment you move out of range. Plus, a connected watch and phone now offer faster identity checks for smooth, secure access. [Phone lock and Left Behind on Pixel Watch 2+, Trusted locations Pixel Watch 3 & 4]
Express Pay: Pay even more conveniently by just turning and tapping your Pixel Watch to a retail terminal without opening the Wallet app–or compromising security. [Available on Pixel Watch 2+]
Find Hub on Pixel Watch: Find your misplaced devices and essentials in seconds, right from your wrist with Find Hub on Pixel Watch.
One-handed gestures: Our intuitive one-handed gestures will be expanding to Pixel Watch 3 [Already on Pixel Watch 4]
Earthquake alerts: The new standalone earthquake alerts notify users of nearby earthquakes in real-time, providing seconds of warning before the shaking starts. [Available on Pixel Watch 2+]
Finally, I don’t tend to cover phone stuff unless it intersects with sports/fitness stuff, but it’s worthwhile noting that this is all part of Google’s larger March 2026 ‘Pixel Drop’ where an assortment of Pixel products (phones, watches, etc…) are getting new features. In addition, there’s also a slate of Android feature updates as well being announced. I didn’t see anything else in the list that intersected with the sports/fitness realm, but you can dig into those here if that’s up your alley.
In any case, back to watches, I’d have to assume the next step here is expansion beyond emergency SOS features (e.g. to regular satellite texting and location updating like Apple has, or some other variant like Garmin has). I had confirmed last year with the Google Pixel Watch team that there wasn’t anything technical from a hardware standpoint that limits them here, but really more of the software side. That of course, makes sense, because the hardware layer doesn’t really care if you’re sending out a message that you’ve been attacked by a bear, or that instead, you’re just texting a friend you ran out of Haribo. Same-same to the watch NTN hardware, just different bears.
I’d have to imagine just a feature expansion would happen no later than a Pixel Watch 5 launch (presumably late summer 2026 or early fall 2026), though equally I think there’s a strong case to be made to do that as part of Google I/O (May 19/20th, 2026), or something else aside from new hardware launches. Either way, looking forward to that happening at some point.
With that, thanks for reading!
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It really frustrating/sucks to see companies like Google and Apple update their watches for years but then Garmin will only add new features for a year or so even though the hardware has zero issues running new software like lifestyle logging, new sports apps or new UI.