A rather unexpected Play Store promotion today has the Google Store selling you a Samsung Galaxy Watch 8.
When you open the US Play Store today, you may see a “Devices from Google Store” carousel. The first product promoted is the Galaxy Watch 8, with the Pixel Watch 4 and Fitbit Air rounding things out.
You can get $20 off the $400 Samsung wearable until July 14, which is It’s not a particularly good deal. first of all.
Tapping opens the usual Google Store checkout process for first-party Pixel products. This includes viewing product images and choosing between 40mm ($399.99) and 44mm ($429.99) sizes on LTE. You can even use Google Store financing.
On the same checkout page, the product name has a “Play” tag at the end: “Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 40mm Silver (Play).”
That said, there is no product listing for the Galaxy Watch 8 alongside the Pixel products on the Google Store.
Otherwise, the checkout system leverages your existing cart, your saved address, and your payment information, including Google Store credit. Presumably there are Samsung devices alongside Pixel products in the Google Store warehouse.
Google and Samsung have close collaboration across the Android ecosystem, including marketing, but this is still unexpected, if not a little confusing, for end users from a branding point of view. The Google Store is the company’s de facto home page for Made by Google hardware efforts on the Pixel, Home/Nest, and Fitbit.
Looking ahead, it remains to be seen if this is a glimpse of things to come Samsung’s Android XR glasses and google books from several manufacturers this fall.
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