Google focuses on fitness for Pixel Watch 5, adds insulin resistance monitoring

Google unveiled a bunch of new products today, including its new Pixel 11 series of smartphones. But while the phones got some cool upgrades, the Pixel Watch line also got some welcome improvements with the new Pixel Watch 5.

Like the Watch 4, the new Pixel Watch comes in two sizes (41 and 45mm), each with Wi-Fi and cellular variants.

There’s not a ton that’s different with the hardware, which is fine by me since the Pixel Watch 4 hardware was solid. However, Google did add some new colour options, with the Pixel Watch 5 available in Obsidian, Fog, Olive, and Canyon. The Olive colourway sports a new “Satin Pyrite” casing, while the Canyon colour on the 41mm watch is just a new band option.

Beyond the colours, the hardware is mostly the same. Once again, the Pixel Watch sports an Actua 360 ‘domed’ display, with up to 30 hours of battery life on the 41mm model or up to 40 on the 45mm model. Under the display, the Watch 5 sports mostly the same chips as last year, including the Snapdragon W5 Gen 2 Accelerated (up from last year’s regular W5 Gen 2) and the Cortex-M55 coprocessor.

Pixel Watch 5 on a charger.

Instead, most of the big new changes this year are on the fitness side — great news for fitness fanatics out there. Google touted some upgrades like improved blood pressure tracking and the ability to test insulin resistance via a new feature called ‘Health Guardian.’ Health Guardian passively tracks a variety of health metrics, including the aforementioned blood pressure as well as sleep quality and breathing, to build a picture of users’ health.

Typically, insulin resistance can require using needles, but Google says the Pixel Watch 5 can estimate insulin resistance using passive sensors on the watch without requiring formal lab work. The company does stress that the feature can’t replace formal lab work, but it can help warn people early if it picks up trends that indicate insulin resistance. It’ll be interesting to see how well this feature works in practice. Impressively, the feature will also come to the Pixel Watch 3 and Watch 4, as well as the new Fitbit Air, later this year.

For runners, Google said it made some upgrades to GPS tracking that should make it more accurate in difficult environments, such as in cities with tall buildings.

Pixel Watch 5 Canyon colour.

Elsewhere, Google touted AI upgrades with Gemini improvements, including offline Gemini use for managing timers, alarms, and workouts. Google claims the Pixel Watch 5 can work in the background as well, surfacing dynamic info directly on the watchface as needed, such as flight info or reminders.

That all sounds great on paper, but here’s hoping it actually works like that in practice. Google made similar claims with the Magic Cue system it introduced on last year’s Pixel phones, but in my experience, it seldom worked as advertised. Moreover, I’ve had a lot of issues with Gemini on the Pixel Watch 4, being notably unreliable for common, simple tasks like setting timers.

Finally, we come to the price, which, like all the other Pixel hardware, is more expensive this year. Across the board, you’re looking at a roughly $40 to $80 increase for the various Pixel Watch 5 models compared to the same Watch 4 variants. Not a huge increase, but certainly not nothing either.

• Pixel Watch 5 41mm Wi-Fi – $549.99 (up from $479)
• Pixel Watch 5 41mm LTE – $679.99 (up from $599)
• Pixel Watch 5 45mm Wi-Fi – $589.99 (up from $549)
• Pixel Watch 5 45mm LTE – $719.99 (up from $679)

While it’ll take some more testing before I can say for certain, my initial impression is that Watch 4 owners can safely skip this upgrade cycle, and likely Watch 3 owners as well, especially since some of the most notable new features will come to older watches as well.

Images credit: Google