Google will switch off Safety Signal on December 12, 9to5Google reported on Thursday. That's the free LTE fallback that lets a Pixel Watch 2 or Pixel Watch 3 call for help with no phone nearby and no carrier plan.
Earlier this week a warning turned up in the Pixel Watch app's code with no deadline attached. Now there's a date, and it's about nine weeks out.
Safety Signal only ever worked on the LTE versions of those two watches, and only for people paying for Fitbit Premium, which later became Google Health Premium. When the watch had no Bluetooth link to a phone and no cellular plan, it could still get onto LTE for Emergency SOS, Fall Detection, Safety Check and Emergency Sharing.
All four features keep working when the watch can reach your phone or has an internet connection. What ends is the free backup for the moments it has neither. Google says Google Health Premium subscribers will get an email 30 days before the shutdown, and Safety Signal keeps running until then.
The Pixel Watch 4 doesn't use Safety Signal. It sends an SOS by satellite with no paired phone, and since March that has worked in Canada, Europe, Alaska and Hawaii as well as the contiguous US.
If you own an LTE Pixel Watch 2 or 3 and never put it on a carrier plan, December 12 is the day it stops being able to call for help by itself. Adding the watch to your phone plan keeps things as they are. Otherwise your phone has to come with you.