Pixel Watch 4 exposes the EU's wearable battery exemption

It took a CNET presenter with no electronics experience 90 minutes, one spudger and a set of what they described as dangerously sharp tweezers to replace the screen on a Google Pixel Watch 4 at a desk. The watch turned back on. "Life altering for the watch, that is," they joked in the All Things Mobile video. "My own life was never at risk."

That repair is worth dwelling on, because the European Commission has just decided that repairs like it are unrealistic enough to exempt an entire product category from its battery rules.

On 14 July 2026 the Commission adopted a delegated exemption for smartwatches, fitness trackers and smart glasses under the EU Batteries Regulation (2023/1542). The act still faces scrutiny by the European Parliament and Council before it can enter into force. The broader rule applies from 18 February 2027 and generally requires portable batteries in products, including phones and tablets, to be removable and replaceable by users throughout the product's lifetime. Apple Watch, Fitbit trackers and Meta's Ray-Ban glasses fall outside it. The stated reasoning, as reported by 9to5Mac, is that opening devices in this class "could create safety risks or where technical limits make consumer access unrealistic," particularly where "safety, durability, or water resistance could be compromised by user access to the battery."

Water resistance is the load-bearing word in that sentence. It is also the exact thing Google solved in 2025.

iFixit's Pixel Watch 4 teardown opens with the claim that the most repairable smartwatch on the market comes from a company you would never suspect, and the video backs it with a parts list rather than an argument — after disclosing that iFixit has an existing business relationship with Google and is, in its own words, hopelessly biased in favour of repairable products: 1IP, 2IP and 5IP Torx Plus bits, a spudger, tweezers. Nothing else. The two exterior screws each carry a tiny O-ring and drive a hinge mechanism that pulls the rear sensor plate down against a seal. The battery — a 1.747Wh cell, up from 1.184Wh in the Pixel Watch 2 — comes out after two more screws and one press connector. "No heat. No glue. No drama," as the teardown puts it. The display is screwed down and sealed with a replaceable, purchasable O-ring gasket, which iFixit points out is how dive watches have held water out for decades. The provisional score was 9 out of 10, with an IP68 rating intact.

iFixit's own Galaxy Watch Ultra teardown is the useful control. Samsung's rear-entry design earned a provisional 7 out of 10, better than Apple's, but the battery is "glued in pretty tight," the display needs heat, and a purely cosmetic bezel has to come off before the panel does. The teardown reserved judgement on whether Samsung would ever publish manuals or sell the gaskets and adhesives that keep the watch sealed. On the Apple Watch Ultra and Ultra 2, iFixit noted, the four torx screws on the sensor plate "led to nowhere and did nothing but nullify the water resistance" — every repair still went in through the expensive OLED.

So the category is not uniformly unopenable. One company built a sealed, IP68 wearable that a hobbyist can service, published service manuals for both the 41mm and 45mm sizes at launch, and said screen and battery swaps performed to those manuals do not void the one-year warranty. The Commission has now adopted an exemption that would ask nothing comparable of the other two.

Here is where the beat turns awkward for Google. The Future Is Repairable's step-by-step battery guide for the Pixel Watch 4 runs about twelve steps and opens with a sensible pitch — battery dying too fast, don't rush to buy a new watch. Reasonable advice, right up until you check how long the watch will receive software.

Google's wearable policy is three years from release. The Pixel Watch 4 is covered to roughly October 2028. Engadget's rundown of smartwatches entering their final year notes the Pixel Watch 2 loses support on 1 October 2026, and that Apple Watch Series 6, 7, 8, SE 2 and the original Ultra all drop off with watchOS 27 this September — Apple, the piece observes, typically gives its watches between three and six years of major OS support. Google's seven-year commitment for Pixel phones has never been extended to the wrist.

A device you can rebuild indefinitely and cannot patch past 2028 is a strange object. Engadget is right that nothing dies at the deadline — notifications and workout tracking keep working. But a watch holding payment credentials and continuous health data is a poor candidate for running unpatched, and the resale market prices support windows in.

Treat the Pixel Watch 4's repairability as real and immediately useful: a display is estimated around $100, the manuals exist, and the CNET attempt shows a first-timer can finish the job in an evening. That genuinely changes the maths on a cracked screen in year two.

Treat it as a hardware answer to a software question, though, and you will be disappointed in 2029. The EU rule that would have forced Samsung and Apple to catch up on batteries is not coming for wearables, and no regulation currently sets a minimum update term for a smartwatch. Until one does, the honest way to compare these devices is to check the support end date first and the screwdriver requirements second.