The Pixel 8 Pro temperature sensor only matters if Google commits

Abner Li | May 23 2023 - 2:21 pm PT

For better or worse, adding an IR temperature sensor to the Pixel 8 Pro is Google-y. The company has a history of peculiar hardware additions.

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There was Active Edge on the Pixel 2 and Pixel 3 for squeezing to launch Assistant, while the latter phones offered a second front-facing camera with 97-degree FOV for wide-angle shots. (Again, I’m still so surprised this dual-camera setup was not used for facial recognition.)

Google’s willingness for its phones to have something unique peaked with the Pixel 4 and Soli radar for air gestures that could end alarms and control music, as well as for speeding up Face Unlock. Reportedly, sales for that year weren’t very good, and consequently, none of those features made it to the next generation.

The Pixel 6 saw a new design language that presumably was always coming side-by-side with Google Tensor, while the Pixel 7 was a clear refinement year. Basically, since the Pixel 5, Google hasn’t tried anything out of the ordinary with hardware.

The temperature sensor on the Pixel 8 Pro could break that streak. To Google’s credit with the Pixel 2 and 3, those hardware additions did not heavily impact the phone’s design. Both generations looked mostly in line with their contemporaries, but the Pixel 4 did not, with its large upper notch to fit the radar array.

The Pixel 8 Pro does not look drastically different from what came before, a sign that there are no downsides to usability with this sensor’s addition. If that remains true in usage, it becomes purely additive.

It’s too early to predict usage of that particular feature (though I have my thoughts), but my primary concern here is Google’s commitment. Since the Pixel 4 situation, Google has been focused on the core phone experience.

With the Pixel 8 Pro, it feels like Google is experimenting again with hardware. I applaud that. It’s fun and exciting to see something different for the slab smartphone form factor outside of camera innovation (which Google is always pursuing).

However, experimentation should be done because you think the end result adds legitimate value or helpfulness, not because it’s simply cool or possible, with the market justification coming later.

In the case of the temperature sensor, hopefully, the idea behind it is that Google wants to make health a major tentpole of its phones alongside Pixel Call Assist, Pixel Speech, Pixel Safe, and Pixel Camera as Rick Osterloh summarized at I/O 2023.

If Google wants to make health a key aspect of Pixel phones, I’m all for it. It makes sense with Fitbit (though I think wearables and the wrists are a better place for that).

However, I want the Pixel team to commit to it. That could involve putting the sensor on next year’s phone (and even bringing it to the smaller model) or finding another way to record temperature if bringing something up to your temple does not stick.

What I don’t want to happen is for Google to drop the temperature sensor from the Pixel 9 and never discuss health again. In that scenario, Google would have learned nothing from the Pixel 4 and would be betraying the sense of maturity that the Pixel 6 and 7 brought to its phones. You can add differentiating hardware to phones if you genuinely believe it’s of value. If that fails, you keep trying.

However, if you remove it after one year, then that differentiating hardware was just a pet project and indicative of a scattershot, “see what sticks” approach to product development for your most important product.

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