A rather unexpected Play Store promotion today sees the Google Store selling you the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8.
Opening the US Play Store today might show you a “Devices from Google Store” carousel. The first product introduced is the Galaxy Watch 8, with the Pixel Watch 4 and Fitbit Air rounding things off.
Get $20 off a $400 Samsung wearable through July 14 not a particularly good deal first of all.
Clicking 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 is marked with a “Play” tag at the end: “Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 40mm Silver (Play)”.
However, there are no product listings for the Galaxy Watch 8 alongside the Pixel products on the Google Store.
The checkout system otherwise uses your existing cart, saved address, and payment information, including Google Store credit. Google Store supposedly has Samsung devices alongside Pixel products in its inventory.
Google and Samsung have a close partnership in the Android ecosystem, including marketing, but it’s still unexpected, if not somewhat confusing, to end users in terms of branding. The Google Store is the company’s de facto home page for its Made by Google hardware efforts on the Pixel, Home/Nest, and Fitbit.
Looking ahead, it remains to be seen if we get a glimpse of what that will bring Samsung’s Android XR glasses and Google books from various manufacturers this fall.
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