{"slug": "google-pixel-watch-5-review-more-health-more-ai", "title": "Google Pixel Watch 5 Review: More Health, More AI", "summary": "Google's Pixel Watch 5, starting at $399 for the 41-mm model and $429 for the 45-mm model, adds new health features like a Strength Training experience and offline Gemini functionality, powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 Gen 2 Accelerated chip that Google says is 20 percent faster than its predecessor. The watch maintains its domed design and offers up to 40 hours of battery life, with fast charging delivering 15 hours of use in 15 minutes, but AI-generated watch faces feel gimmicky and the price has increased.", "body_md": "Remains a stunning design. New Health Guardian features with proactive wellness insights. Strength Training experience is useful for gym-goers. Gemini now has offline functionality. Double the storage.\n\nTIRED\n\nAI watch faces feel gimmicky. Price has crept up. Active Band is still dull. Still no better charging ecosystem.\n\nThe Google Pixel Watch has always been a gorgeous smartwatch (minus the Active Band, which we’ve complained about ad nauseam). With Google Health Premium and Google Health Coach now part of the experience, it’s also one of the few smartwatches that feels equally capable as a fitness tracker and an everyday companion.\n\nThe Pixel Watch 5 takes a repairable model we already love and fine-tunes it, with most of the meaningful changes coming to Google’s health and fitness tools. Like the Fitbit Air, it leans further into proactive health insights. Most of our complaints about the Pixel Watch 4 remain, except that Gemini now has (some) offline functionality.\n\nSmarter and Still Domed\n\nGoogle says the Pixel Watch 5 is 20 percent faster than its predecessor, thanks to its upgraded Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 Gen 2 Accelerated chip. CPU performance gets a 12 percent boost, and there's double the RAM. I didn’t notice a dramatic difference in speed compared to the Watch 4, but I also had few complaints to begin with. Scrolling is smooth, apps load and update quickly, and Gemini responds to voice commands without much lag.\n\nThe Pixel Watch maintains its domed design, which remains one of my favorite traits. The curved display makes information easy to glance at while giving the smartwatch a more approachable look. There were already plenty of watch faces to choose from, and Google has added two more, along with 11 complication styles.\n\nYou can also now use generative AI to create a custom face from a prompt. The customization is somewhat limited; you’re essentially choosing the font, but it was surprisingly responsive to my weirder requests. My Nickelodeon-themed prompt produced an orange face covered in slime, and brand-inspired prompts were decent at mimicking iconic fonts like Coca-Cola's. Still, I never landed on an AI-generated face I liked more than the defaults, so I went back to Digital Bold.\n\nI tested the 45-mm model, and it’s the right choice if you want a larger display for readability and glanceability during workouts. But I previously used the 41-mm Watch 4, and I do prefer that size for my smaller wrists. Even with the smaller screen, notifications and workout stats are easy to read.\n\nThe Watch 5 features a larger battery than its predecessor, mainly to support new AI capabilities. For that reason, battery life remains similar, with Google estimating up to 40 hours. I get about 36 hours, which is still solid. What continues to impress me the most, though, is the fast charging, which delivers 15 hours of use in just 15 minutes. This is a game-changer when I forget to charge it before heading out for a workout (which is often!). Google still hasn't introduced additional charging options or 3-in-1 or 2-in-1 docks for its Pixel portfolio (the Apple Watch has so many charging accessories), and we’re still patiently waiting.\n\nIt still comes with an Active Band (ugh), but there are new color options, including Fog, Canyon (exclusive to the 41-mm model), and Olive. Prices have also gone up, starting at $399 (41 mm) and $429 (45 mm). Similar to the Fitbit Air, there’s a Stephen Curry Special Edition, which comes with a water-repellent band for a total of $579.\n\nMore Ways to Track Your Health\n\nFitness tracking gets some of the biggest upgrades. The new Strength Training experience adds a workout builder, audio cues, rest timers, and the ability to track weights and reps. You can create a custom workout in the Google Health app, then have the watch guide you through each exercise and time your rest periods. You can also ask Google’s AI coach to build a workout based on a photo of your equipment.\n\nWhether 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.\n\nGemini 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.\n\nThe 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.\n\nInsulin 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.\n\nLastly, 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.\n\nOn 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.\n\nSmart 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.\n\nEarlier this spring, Google launched the Fitbit Air, which was one of its first wearables built around Google Health Premium and Health Coach. The Pixel Watch 5 gets access to those same tools, too. Most of the insights are also locked behind the Premium subscription, so it really does feel like a necessary part of the experience. You do get three months free with the watch, at least.\n\nThe Watch 5 is Google’s best smartwatch, but many of the new software features will also be rolling out to the Watch 4. So if you need a smartwatch but you're feeling the pinch of the current economic crisis, you might be able to save some cash with last year's model.\n\nBoutayna Chokrane is a product writer and reviewer at WIRED, covering consumer products and online trends. She specializes in fitness equipment, beauty tech, apparel, and more. Before joining the Gear team, she was a music editorial fellow at Pitchfork. She also worked as a freelance journalist, covering fashion, arts, and ... 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