Unreleased tech devices don’t usually leak this way. Most of the time, products appear before their launch through blurry images or leaked designs, but the story of the Pixel Watch 5 seems more strange, after an unannounced model of it was found underwater near the island of St. Martin.
According to the Android Police website, a diver found a smart watch believed to be a Pixel Watch 5 during a diving trip, in an incident that brings to mind unusual leaks that the world of technology has witnessed previously, most notably the appearance of the iPhone 4 before its launch after an Apple engineer forgot it in a bar.
A friend of mine found this watch a few days ago ~underwater~ when he was scuba diving near the island of St. Martin. He noted that the reverse of the watch indicates that it is a Google Pixel 5, which has not yet been announced, let alone released. It seems to be fine. The face… pic.twitter.com/Mnenov1sFE
— Randy Pitchford (@DuvalMagic) May 31, 2026
From the front, it is difficult to distinguish between the watch that was found and the current Pixel Watch 4, but the markings on the back clearly show the name Pixel Watch 5, which reinforces the possibility that it is a not-yet-released version of the next Google watch.
The watch battery was not able to fully operate the device, but it retained a limited amount of energy that allowed it to show the time for a short period.
According to the report, Randy Pitchford said he had already contacted the owner of the watch and arranged for it to be returned to him. It is likely that a Google employee wore the unannounced watch while diving during a vacation, before he lost it at sea and believed it had disappeared permanently, until another diver found it later.
Despite the strangeness of the story, the leaked version of the Pixel Watch 5 appears to be largely advanced and complete compared to what is usually expected from prototypes. If Google adheres to the same timetable it followed last year, it is expected to unveil the new watch in mid-August, which makes the appearance of a model this ready more than two months before the launch is remarkable.
Reports indicate that the Pixel Watch 5 may receive major internal upgrades, most notably the move to a Tensor chip developed by Google, with the adoption of newer Cortex-A78 and A55 cores based on 3-nm manufacturing technology from TSMC.
These improvements would give the watch a clear jump in performance and energy efficiency, and most importantly, it could open the door for Google to offer more artificial intelligence features in the fifth generation of its smart watch.
