An Exclusive Look at Reliability Labs, Where Google Stress Tests Pixel Hardware

Smartphones are durable, almighty devices we transportation everywhere. They get slightly better each year, too. Whether that's done improved solid exertion that's much shatter- and scratch-proof, oregon surface size adjustments to guarantee the champion acquisition successful your hand.

Take the just-announced Pixel 10 Pro Fold, for example. It's present IP68-rated for h2o and particulate resistance, conscionable similar astir flagship candybar phones. Just a fewer years ago, the hinge mechanics connected folding phones was inactive having problems with dust, and adjacent Samsung's latest Galaxy Z Fold7 is lone IP48, meaning it's not as dust-proof arsenic the Pixel.

Phone manufacturers tally a artillery of tests connected their devices perpetually passim the improvement cycle—sometimes much than a twelvemonth earlier the merchandise adjacent comes out. Google invited maine to its office successful Mountain View, California, to cheque retired 1 specified investigating center, dubbed Reliability Labs. It's a nondescript gathering connected Google's campus, but wrong are next-gen Pixel phones and smartwatches getting tumbled, dropped, and adjacent frozen to measurement their wide durability. (Google paid for a information of my question expenses to spot its probe facility.)

The Folding Test

You've astir apt seen a trial conscionable similar this with different folding smartphones. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold is clamped to this machine, which continuously folds and unfolds the device, and it's what allows telephone makers to accidental their instrumentality tin withstand 250,000 oregon 500,000 folds, offering a small much bid of caput for the hinge's reliability. This is conscionable 1 investigating machine, but Google says it has aggregate of these operating successful Asia, folding and unfolding preproduction units.

Google claims the caller Pixel 10 Pro Fold tin withstand 10+ years of folding, oregon 200,000 folds for the hinge. Samsung claims 500,000 folds for the Galaxy Z Fold7. (If you fold the telephone 100 times a day—which is connected the excessive end—that's 365,000 folds aft 10 years.) But Google's 10+ years assertion isn't conscionable astir the hinge. The caller gearless plan of the Pixel 10 Pro Fold allows for much country for the show to flex, putting little strain connected the screen, and determination are respective caller strengthening layers to enactment the display. That means some the show and hinge should past a decade.

Scratch and Wear Tests

Next up are a fewer deterioration tests. The archetypal was a mannequin's limb wearing the Pixel Watch 4, bolted to a robot limb that moved backmost and forth. The watch's set was resting connected a portion of wood, and the trial measured however good the strap fared erstwhile rubbing against the material. (It's casual to power the worldly it rubs against to thing else, similar a metallic sheet.) It's a aboveground abrasion trial Google runs to trial caller strap types for its smartwatches; a unit sensor applies accordant unit for close measurements.

There aren't immoderate caller strap materials for the caller Pixel Watch 4, but this is 1 of the processes utilized to trial assorted materials utilized for the bands. I asked the institution astir recent studies that amusement fluroelastomer straps—like the ones Google, Samsung, and Apple merchantability for their respective smartwatches—have precocious concentrations of “forever chemicals,” though there's constricted cognition connected however overmuch they're absorbed by the skin. Francis Hoe, elder merchandise manager for the Pixel Watch, says Google runs respective biocompatibility tests earlier releasing immoderate benignant of product, and is “always reasoning astir caller materials,” though helium didn't stock immoderate different details.

In the adjacent room, there's a tray with respective generations of Pixel phones wrong (including the latest Pixel 10 series), lying look down connected different woody surface. This is designed to mimic a real-world idiosyncratic sliding their telephone look down connected a table. Google's investigating squad runs these tests for definite intervals, similar 30 minutes, and past checks for scratches. It offers an accelerated look astatine however the screen solid volition fare implicit a agelong period, connected antithetic aboveground types, and however it compares to erstwhile generations. (The Pixel 10 bid uses the aforesaid Gorilla Glass Victus 2 worldly arsenic its predecessor.)

The Tumble Test

How does a telephone fare erstwhile thrown into a container oregon purse filled with different stuff? Yes, radical really flip their pricey telephone into a bag, but that can scratch up the glass. This is what the tumble trial monitors. This small, reddish tumbler is filled with a fistful of communal items, from a hairbrush and a nail clipper to keys and pens. A squad subordinate popped successful a Pixel Watch 4 successful 1 machine, and a Pixel 10 Pro successful another. Just similar your dryer, everything tumbles unneurotic for a definite fig of cycles, aft which Google's squad volition cheque the hardware for harm and rinse and repeat. This allows Google to show the wide durability and scratch-resistance of the devices, from the solid to the buttons and the anodized metal.

The database of items successful the tumbler stays accordant twelvemonth implicit year, allowing for nonstop comparisons implicit anterior procreation hardware. Hoe says these kinds of tests statesman aboriginal connected successful development, and Google past uses reliability results to pass cardinal decisions astatine the adjacent checkpoint of the improvement phase.

Shock Tower

Arguably the loudest trial I experienced, Shock Tower is what Google calls this contraption. Think of it similar a driblet operation thrust astatine an amusement parkland that plummets you instantly from a large tallness (leaving you with soiled pants). Shock Tower is simply a controlled driblet test—a Pixel 10 was clamped connected and dropped astatine a circumstantial velocity and height, with a large CLANG erstwhile it hits the bottom.

It doesn't needfully measurement however the driblet affects the outer parts of the phone, similar the solid oregon display—though I was offered information glasses conscionable successful lawsuit the solid cracked (it didn't). Instead, it's much to assistance show however the daze affects internal components, and allows Google to bring these components to nonaccomplishment to spot however the assembly of these sub-modules could beryllium affected by drops. You wouldn't privation your artillery to get disconnected from a drop, and that's thing this trial could perchance assistance show.

Drop Test

There is a not-so-controlled driblet test, too. Rivaling the Shock Tower for loudness, this 1-meter metallic container is benignant of similar the tumbler instrumentality successful that it's perpetually rotating 360 degrees. On 1 broadside is the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, and connected the other, a Pixel Watch 4—both perpetually hitting 1 extremity and falling successful a frenzy to the different arsenic the instrumentality spins. It is simply a painfully large sound, and aft a fewer spins, you commencement to consciousness atrocious for the hardware.

Hoe says Google typically runs this trial for respective cycles, but it usually involves 100 drops per test, aft which the squad inspects the hardware to find if it's a walk oregon fail. There are antithetic criteria successful what determines a walk oregon fail, but it's not conscionable astir checking to spot if the solid cracked. Did the buttons break? Did the camera module popular out? Does the telephone inactive crook on? Those are the kinds of things the squad looks at.

Freezing and Extreme Heat Test

This country was cramped with machines that helped measurement however devices could grip vigor and cold, and accelerated transitions betwixt utmost temperatures. Naturally, determination was a Pixel Watch 4 sitting frozen successful a instrumentality that blasted it with h2o that's rapidly cooled, and different instrumentality ratcheted the somesthesia from -10 to 35 degrees Celsius (14 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit) astatine 95 percent humidity levels to show the somesthesia change.

These tests person 2 purposes. It shows however good the instrumentality tin proceed to execute aft enduring these utmost temperatures. However, it besides allows Google to simulate the property of the hardware, investigating them astatine antithetic intervals to show show implicit an accelerated period.

Water Resistance and Pressure Test

Next, I went into a country wherever I had to deterioration a poncho to debar being deed by jets of water. It's the h2o absorption test! I watched a Pixel 10 Pro Fold get doused successful jets of h2o from each angles, ensuring Google's hardware would pass the IPX5 test. (Google would inactive request to nonstop its hardware for autarkic investigating to gain the IP68 badge.) The “5” successful that fig specifically tests for extortion from jets of h2o astatine immoderate angle, but determination are different tests Google conducts, similar IPX8 for h2o immersion. It's conscionable not arsenic absorbing to look at—think of a Pixel 10 sitting successful a h2o vessel for 30 minutes.

In the adjacent country over, I recovered respective Pixel Watch 4 models sitting successful what looked similar a unit cooker. This contraption is what Google uses to measurement however overmuch unit the hardware tin withstand, adjuvant for swimmers and divers. The latest Pixel Watch maintains its 5 ATM rating, meaning it tin grip up to 50 meters for a definite magnitude of time. Once the devices are wrong and the 5 bars of unit person been set, aerial bubbles volition aboveground connected the hardware, meaning there's a leak; Google would person to instrumentality isolated the instrumentality to spot what's causing the issue.

Empathy Models

The past happening Google showed maine revolves astir the size of the phone. You'll spot 2 rows of fake devices: the near exemplary connected the apical is the Pixel 8's existent size, and the near exemplary connected the bottommost is the Pixel 8 Pro's real-world size. The different slabs approximate what the telephone feels similar for folks with mean to smaller hands (they're weighted accurately). The mediate is what radical with medium-sized hands consciousness erstwhile holding the phone, and the close exemplary is what it's similar for idiosyncratic with tiny hands. I did a small manus measuring trial that determined my manus was adjacent bigger than the “large” size, truthful I'm positively atrocious for each the folks with tiny hands who person to acquisition these Very Big phones.

It's this benignant of trial that helps signifier sizing decisions for the phones. “We're often trying to marque definite our devices are arsenic comfy for each the radical purchasing the merchandise … truly trying to recognize the captious dimensions,” says Stephanie Scott, radical merchandise manager astatine Google. With this test, folks with ample hands connected Google's squad are capable to spot what the telephone they're designing feels similar for smaller paws (hence the “Empathy Models” sanction for the test). Google did stock that its information shows that women thin to gravitate to the smaller phones, and that the Pro models thin to person a antheral demographic.

Continuous Testing

It's worthy noting that these tests tally continuously passim the improvement cycle. That means erstwhile a caller prototype mentation of the hardware is ready, Google saves a fewer models to spell done the artillery of tests astatine Reliability Labs, and that'll hap again with the adjacent mentation of the hardware. And Google doesn't conscionable bash laboratory tests.

“Reliability helps america beryllium the robustness of the design, and past we tally an interior squad investigating program, and we trial it crossed each the iterations of the product,” Hoe says. There's a squad of real-world users that enactment the phones and watches done their paces extracurricular of a laboratory setting.

Google isn't the lone institution moving these kinds of accent tests—every large telephone shaper apt does similar, if not identical, tests. However, these tests don't warrant a merchandise volition beryllium escaped of issues erstwhile it hits the market.

There are plentifulness of instances wherever Google has dealt with hardware issues implicit the past 9 years of its Pixel phones, from screen issues to adjacent problems with the camera module. More recently, the company's Pixel A-series phones are moving into artillery problems. Some Pixel 4a, Pixel 6a, and Pixel 7a devices are undergoing a artillery show programme wherever a mandatory bundle update cuts the artillery capableness and reduces charging show to forestall overheating risks. (Google is providing a escaped artillery replacement oregon Google Store credit.) I asked Google if these artillery woes could impact the latest Pixel 9a, and here's what a Google spokesperson said:

“Google continuously improves Pixel investigating based connected idiosyncratic feedback and thoroughly investigates reported incidents for each components, including batteries. With Pixel 9a, we delivered the largest and longest-lasting artillery of immoderate A-series yet. We’ve been encouraged by its reception truthful acold and are assured successful the phone’s longevity and durability.”

We'll person to hold a fewer years to spot however that holds up.