Pixel Watch 3: The First Android Device With Ultra‑Precise Bluetooth Tracking

In late 2022, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) unveiled Bluetooth 6.0, which includes a feature named Channel Sounding that allows for true distance awareness by accurately measuring the distance between two devices. This new capability has thrilling implications for item trackers, as most of them do not have precision finding. The downside? There appeared to be no Android devices available that supported Bluetooth 6.0 or channel sounding. <pphr/output It turns out that only one device supports channel sounding: the Google Pixel Watch 3.

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The majority of Bluetooth devices today estimate distance by measuring the strength of the signal exchanged between them. This approach, although easy to put into practice, is not dependable; it lacks precision and is vulnerable to interference, which can be exasperating for item tracking. Conversely, channel sounding determines the duration of a signal’s journey between two devices, reaching an accuracy of centimeters.

If you have ever found it difficult to find an item tracker on your phone, it was probably due to its dependence on that same unreliable signal strength technique. UWB (Ultra-wideband) support in devices like the Moto Tag was crucial because it enables location tracking with far greater precision than Bluetooth’s signal strength can provide.