Google Pixel Watch review: Android’s answer to the Apple Watch gets an SpO2 update

Google’s debut wearable hits the ground running with Fitbit-quality health tracking and a new SpO2 sensor

Steve Hogarty
Wednesday 14 June 2023 10:37 EDT
Google’s monthly feature drops add new functionality and updates
Google’s monthly feature drops add new functionality and updates (The Independent)

Launched in 2022, the Pixel Watch (£339, Google.com) is Google’s first attempt at making an Android wearable that’s as useful, seamlessly integrated and well-designed as the Apple Watch is for iPhone users. The debut smartwatch is designed to work with Pixel devices and Android phones in general, with a classic style and shape that reflects the flowing curves and aluminium bezels of Google’s premium flagship phones.

Powered by the recently renovated Wear OS operating system, the Pixel Watch does the things you’d expect a smartwatch to be able to do in 2023: you can speak to the Google Assistant with a “hello Google”, read WhatsApp messages without taking your phone out of your pocket, install apps from the Google Play store, be reminded of your appointments and see turn-by-turn directions on Google Maps.

But as well as putting a little bit of Google helpfulness on your wrist, the Pixel Watch comes with best-in-class fitness credentials straight out of the gate. The health tracking side of things is handled entirely by Fitbit, which means Google’s nascent wearable isn’t playing catch up. Instead, it hits the ground running with continuous heart-rate monitoring, detailed workout tracking, sleep-quality assessments and more.

A recent software update unlocks the watch’s SpO2 sensor, so you can track blood oxygen levels while you sleep. SpO2 levels are a general indicator of your overall fitness, and measure your body’s ability to take in oxygen. Pixel Watch owners will see the feature unlock in their Fitbit apps over the coming weeks.

The Pixel Watch comes bundled with six months of Fitbit Premium, which adds a few extra features on top of the standard Fitbit app, as well three months of YouTube Premium, the ad-free tier of the video platform that also includes YouTube Music.

The Pixel Watch is available from Google for £339 for the standard version. There’s also an LTE version for £379, which connects to mobile data networks using an eSIM, so you can leave your phone at home and still stay connected and receive calls and messages on your wrist.

How we tested:

We’ve been wearing the Pixel Watch for weeks, mainly with its natural companion, the new Pixel 7 pro. We also tested it with the Nothing phone (1) to check compatibility with other Android phones. The Pixel Watch isn’t compatible with iOS, which is no great loss to either side – the Apple Watch is still the only real choice for iPhone users.

Our workouts included regular 30-minute runs and lots of walking, plus a few cycling journeys across town. We paid particular attention to battery life, health features and app availability, compared with other leading Android smartwatches.

Google Pixel Watch

pixel watch hazel
  • Size: 41mm
  • Display: 1.2in OLED
  • Weight: 36g
  • Always-on display: Yes
  • Water resistant: IP68, depths of 50m
  • Why we love it
    • Premium, classic design
    • Works seamlessly with Android
    • Excellent health-tracking features
    • Wear OS is fluid and intuitive
    • Regular feature updates
    • SpO2 tracking recently added
  • Take note
    • Battery life is just about adequate
    • No public transport directions in Google Map

The Pixel Watch is one of the best-looking smartwatches we’ve ever strapped to our wrists. From the classically inspired round face to the curved, light-catching edges, it resembles the ideal pebble for skimming across a lake. With its rotating digital crown and straps that smoothly curve to meet the case, the Pixel Watch also looks a fair bit like an Apple Watch, only one that’s been meticulously reshaped from a utilitarian rectangle into a more nature-appeasing circle.

Design

That means it naturally looks more sophisticated than the rival watch – more like an accessory that could show up on a night out without drawing too much attention to itself. A range of optional bands, including sporty woven textile and fancier leather straps with metal lugs, helps to inject a bit more personality and elevate the watch beyond a simple fitness gadget. Right now, you’re limited to Google’s official straps, which are on the spenny side, but third-party options are expected soon.

Google has gone with a single size of watch at launch. At 41mm the Pixel Watch is perfect for petite wrists and takes up less space than the 45mm Samsung Galaxy watch 5 pro (£429, Amazon.co.uk) or the giant Apple Watch ultra (£819, Amazon.co.uk), but it’s still unmistakeably a piece of wearable tech. The back of the device is slightly more dome-shaped than the front, to accommodate the various sensors and gubbins, but when worn on the wrist, the Pixel Watch looks flat and neat.

Health and fitness tracking

The size and shape of the watch also means it’s more comfortable to wear overnight, if you’re into monitoring the quality of your snoozing. At its core, the Pixel Watch is a Fitbit in disguise. The entire health offering – from heart-rate monitoring and step counting to sleep tracking and workouts – is all handled by the Fitbit app, the class-leading fitness wearable company Google acquired in 2019.

That means Google’s late-arriving wearable can go toe-to-toe with the well-developed health and fitness offerings of Apple, Huawei and Samsung watches. Each Pixel Watch comes with six months of Fitbit Premium included, meaning you get features such as second-by-second heart-rate data, automatic workout tracking, guided excercise routines, sleep scores, EKG readings and personalised health insights. You also keep your existing Fitbit data, if you’ve got it.

Read more: Samsung Galaxy watch 5 review

One especially clever fitness feature is Fitbit’s “daily readiness” score, which uses health sensor data, recent activities, heart-rate variability and sleep quality to advise you on whether or not you should work out that day. It’s refreshing to see a fitness app consider active recovery just as much of a meaningful goal as hitting new personal bests.

The Pixel Watch has built-in GPS tracking and music playback, so you can leave your phone behind when going for a run and still enjoy some tunes and get useful data about the length and pace of your workout. In our tests, running without a phone drained a big chunk of the watch’s battery life, so if you really want to leave your phone at home on a regular basis, you’ll have to deal with more-frequent charging.

Battery life

Google rates the Pixel Watch as having a 24-hour battery life and, unlike so many wearables we’ve tested, the smartwatch comfortably manages to last at least as long as advertised between charges.

That’s not a huge battery – we found it lasted about half as long as the Samsung Galaxy watch 5 (£429, Amazon.co.uk) – but it’s more than enough to enable you to wear the Pixel Watch day and night, with a fast-charging break before bed and another top-up in the morning. That’s including a 30-minute tracked run each day, while tethered to our phone’s GPS connection.

There are some battery-draining features turned off by default, such as the always-on display, which shows a simple watch face when the watch isn’t in use. Things such as using the LTE version of the Pixel Watch to make calls or playing music on the watch rather than on your phone will add extra demand on the battery, but overall we found the Pixel Watch had slightly more than enough battery to make it through our daily schedule.

Display

The round 1.2in OLED display is remarkably bright at default settings and, unlike some other watches we’ve tested, the adaptive brightness feature is able to smoothly transition from dark to light environments.

There’s a thick, doughnut-style bezel running around the edge of the display, but the Wear OS interface is good at disguising this. The interface uses a minimal aesthetic with simple shapes on a black background, meaning you really have to look closely at the watchface to see where the screen ends and the edge begins.

Wear OS 3

Of course, as well as bringing Fitbit-quality health tracking to a smartwatch, this is also a Google-designed wearable built around the Pixel ecosystem of devices. That means seamless connectivity and setup with the latest Pixel phones, plus complete compatibility with Samsung and other Android phones.

That also means effortless integration with Google Wallet for contactless payments, Google Maps for navigation, your email and calendar apps for notifications and alerts, and the Google Assistant for answering questions, sending messages and controlling smart home devices. Tapping out messages with a fingertip is about as fiddly on this tiny screen as you’d expect, but voice recognition is surprisingly accurate and reliable enough to dictate messages using just your voice.

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The verdict: Google Pixel Watch

Arriving late to the party – and with Samsung’s and Apple’s wearables already on their fifth and eighth generations – the Pixel Watch had a dizzyingly high bar to clear just to be considered on a par with its biggest rivals. In that respect, Google’s first smartwatch is a giant achievement: it’s an excellent Android smartwatch, it’s health tracking is powered by Fitbit – the best fitness-tracking platform for most users – and it looks sleek and stylish on the wrist.

Two downsides we found in our original review have been addressed, as we predicted they would be. The Pixel Watch now has fall detection and SpO2 tracking, which both arrived in free software updates. Google’s debut wearable is a seamless extension of the Pixel range, a premium Fitbit in Google clothing, and an impressive arrival on the smartwatch scene.

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Thinking of upgrading to a Pixel phone? Check out our review of the new Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 pro

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