Some Google Pixel Watches are experiencing image retention issues

Are you thinking about buying the Google Pixel Watch? If you are, then you might want to disable the watch’s always-on display, especially since there are quite a few users who are reporting that they are experiencing what they initially thought was screen burn-in.

Google has since come forward with a statement claiming that this is not a burn-in, but rather image retention that will eventually go away with time when the screen has been turned off.

For those unfamiliar, while image retention and burn-in sound like they could be the same, they are actually different, with the former being a temporary issue, while the latter is a physical problem that is basically permanent. According to Google’s official statement:

“What you are seeing is image retention. It is a non-permanent issue that affects OLED displays. It is not a precursor to burn-in and should not be confused with burn-in. The image retention will go away but the longer it is on the screen the longer it will take to go away. The Google Pixel Watch uses a software algorithm to shift the brightness of lit pixels every minute to reduce the possibility of image retention. This prolongs the time before image retention is seen and reduces the time for the image to disappear. If users do experience this, it will go away over time, but users can also turn off AOD and/or use bedtime mode for sleep so the screen stays off overnight.”

There doesn’t appear to be a “fix” for this and strangely enough, not all Pixel Watch owners are experiencing the problem, so depending on your luck, you may or may not encounter the problem. Either way, if you do, turning off the always-on display is one way to deal with it.

Source: 9to5Google