Whether you’ll actually use all of this depends on your active lifestyle, but I can see it being particularly useful for someone new to the gym who wants a little structure that feels personal. I do appreciate that it syncs to the watch, so I can see rep counts and rest intervals without unlocking my phone.
Gemini is still one of Pixel Watch’s best features, and it can now tackle offline tasks, such as starting a workout, which is handy if you tend to leave your phone at home on runs. The dual-band GPS is the same, but Google says route tracking is now twice as accurate in urban environments. It now accounts for atmospheric interference and multipath errors, which should help it maintain more accurate positioning around tall buildings. So far, I’ve had zero issues with route mapping in Chicago, and I can say the same for the previous model. I’m curious whether people in New York City might notice a bigger difference.
The Watch 5 retains several health features from its predecessors, including Loss of Pulse detection, ECG, and skin temperature tracking. It also introduces four Health Guardian tools that have undergone clinical validation and will be available in September: Insulin Resistance Trends, Blood Pressure Trends, Breathing Emergency Detection, and Sleep Breathing Quality Trends.
Insulin Resistance Trends analyzes weeks of physiological data to identify shifts in metabolic health without requiring a blood draw. The watch can also passively track pulse and motion patterns throughout the month to estimate blood pressure trends without manual calibration. Breathing Emergency Detection monitors blood oxygen levels for potentially dangerous drops and, if you become unresponsive, can automatically contact emergency services.
Watch 5 sleep tracking.
Screenshot: Boutayna Chokrane
Lastly, Sleep Breathing Quality uses minute-by-minute variations in blood oxygen levels to understand your breathing patterns better while you sleep. Every morning, you’ll see how much of the night you spent with optimal breathing, along with a monthly assessment to recognize longer-term trends. Most of these Health Guardian features, except for Breathing Emergency Detection, are more useful for identifying patterns and should not be used for diagnosis. I wasn’t able to evaluate Health Guardian during testing, considering many of these features aren’t available yet and they require a month of data before establishing meaningful trends.
On the topic of slumber, sleep tracking gets a refresh, too. Google says the Pixel Watch 5 is 15 percent more accurate at tracking sleep than its predecessor. There’s now a dedicated Bedtime Mode that silences notifications, disables the always-on display, simplifies the watch face, and adds a red tint designed to be easier on your eyes in the dark. If you enable the setting, the watch can also automatically pause media when it detects that you’ve fallen asleep.
Smart Wake Alarms aim to wake you during a 30-minute window when you’re in your lightest stage of sleep. This is one of those features that will depend on your personal preference. I value every last minute of sleep, and I find that Smart Wake inevitably wakes me earlier than I want. It’s also worth remembering that sleep-stage tracking is better as a way to identify long-term patterns than as a precise measurement, which makes me a little skeptical of Smart Wake’s accuracy.
