Google has historically been terrible at maintaining confidentiality and secrecy around its Pixel devices. It’s become a given that we’ll see prototype hardware several months before the company’s annual hardware event in October. This has led to Google teasing its upcoming flagships well in advance. But with the Pixel 7A, Pixel Fold and Pixel Tablet all taking center stage at last week’s I/O keynote, we didn’t get an early glimpse of the Pixel 8 lineup.
It didn’t take long for that to change.
The design of the phone closely resembles early renders of the phone, with all three cameras now enclosed in the same glass oval within the metal camera bar. And yes, that looks like a flat screen. Finallyam I right?
In the demo, the person is holding the Pixel 8 Pro extreme close to their foreheads and then moves it smoothly to capture an accurate temperature reading. It seems that a new sensor under the flash is used for this. Glasses and other obstacles must be removed to use the thermometer.
It’s fascinating to see Google pursuing this kind of functionality on a Pixel; after playing around with experimental features like radar on the Pixel 4, the company has been more restrained with its latest flagships, focusing on camera upgrades, the internal Tensor chip and AI features.
The Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro are likely to be announced in October – perhaps with a second-generation Pixel Watch – a few months after Google shipped its $1,800 foldable device. They might look a bit bland by comparison, but you can expect the company’s latest Tensor G3 silicon and even more software gimmicks.
Update May 18, 1:12 PM ET: The original video has been removed from YouTube due to a copyright claim from Google. So if you need further confirmation that these images are legit, there you go.