Pros
- Fun smartwatch features for easy communication
- Smooth Fitbit integration for health metrics
- Accurate heart rate data
Cons
- Poor battery life
- Limited specific fitness metrics
When Google released its Pixel Watch in the fall, I was eager to test it out. After all, the Google Pixel Watch came highly touted—it was the first coupling of Google and Fitbit, following Google’s acquisition of the wearable giant. So I was curious what the combo would yield.
As SELF’s director of fitness, I’ve had the opportunity to test a whole lot of fitness trackers, and to fine-tune what a top wearable means for me: From the start, I’ve been looking for one that’s easy and intuitive to use, accurately tracks workouts to help me reach my fitness goals, and provides the health metrics I need to help me recover from them. As the tech has become more advanced, I’ve found that I’m hoping for a watch that becomes more than an extension of my phone, one that can take on some of its communication tasks on its own.
The Google Pixel Watch advertised all of that. But how did it shake out after a month of real-world testing? Read our full Google Pixel Watch review to find out.
How I Tested
I based my review off SELF’s expert-recommended criteria for evaluating fitness trackers, which takes into account factors like accuracy, ease of use, battery life, and special features.
I wore the Pixel Watch for a month: It stayed on my left wrist for workouts, showering, working, and sleep, and I only took it off to charge it. I tested it during a whole slew of workouts, from running and walking outdoors to cycling and strength training indoors. For comparison’s sake, I swapped my normal everyday fitness tracker, the Garmin Venu 2, to my right wrist to produce some additional data points.
First Impression
Out of the box, the Google Pixel Watch is really quite a stunner: Its smooth, circular face and low profile on the wrist just seems a lot more elegant than you’d expect with a smartwatch. I tested this in black and champagne gold, and the gold lining around the face and on the bezel provided an attractive contrast and a peek of glamor.
Ease of Use
Google Pixel Watch
Rating: 8/10
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Confession: While I love testing out new fitness trackers, I do not love the process of acclimating to new fitness trackers—so ones that are intuitive to use right out of the box are huge for me.
I used the Google Pixel Watch with the Google Pixel 7 Pro phone, and found the connection to be seamless (The Pixel Watch only works with Google Pixel and Android phones). The watch syncs with your contacts, apps, and Google calendar on your phone, which makes communication between the two a breeze. My watch synced right away with the phone, and the setup was pain-free.
Once it was ready to go, I found the Google Pixel Watch straightforward to use: You use swipes and taps on the touchscreen to maneuver the menus, as well as the two physical buttons (the bezel, which also allows you to scroll, and a low-profile button above it). Swipe to the left or right, and you see your main tiles, which include workout selection, daily steps, heart rate, sleep, weather, and calendar events. You can customize these tiles to your liking. Swipe down and you get the watch’s settings, and swipe up to scroll through your text, email, call, or other app notifications.
I’m a huge fan of physical buttons on smartwatches, and I think the ones on the Pixel Watch are particularly useful. Press the bezel once, and you get a list of all your apps. Press it twice, and you pull up your Google Wallet, which allows you to make phone-free payments. As for the small button, a single press gives you a list of your most recent apps, while a long press brings up Google Assistant—which is voice-activated, and really helpful for immediately getting you exactly where you want to go. For instance, when I told it to text my partner, it not only brought up their contact screen, but guided me through creating and sending a voice-activated text.
The Apps
You need two apps to use the Google Pixel Watch: the Watch app and the Fitbit app. Think of the Watch app like the foundation—I used this during setup, and haven’t really messed around with it since. This is where you choose your watch face, the tiles that’ll display on your watch’s screen, notification options, and apps to download. The Fitbit app is what I use on a daily basis: That’s where you get all your health metrics, such as steps, heart rate, and sleep tracking. It’s also where you get all the intel on your workouts.
Exercise Options
Your Google Pixel Watch will track up to 40 different kinds of workouts, from running to elliptical to CrossFit to weight lifting. At first, you’ll have to swipe through the entire list to find the one you want to track, but if you generally default to the same kinds of workouts, you’re in luck: The home exercise screen keeps tiles of your three most recently used icons front and center for easy access.
I’m a runner, so how a fitness tracker measures running is important to me. I feel like the Pixel Watch was adequate on this front, but it could have been better. On the plus side, the running screen shows four metrics on the main screen—which you can customize—so you can see all the majors in one glance. For me, that’s time elapsed, distance, heart rate, and pace.
Google Pixel Watch
Rating: 8/10
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On the not-so-good side, your activity starts immediately when you press start, often while GPS is still connecting. So I found myself having to pause it, and then resume my activity once GPS was good to go, usually in a couple of minutes. You’re also unable to manually mark laps—which I normally use in interval workouts to differentiate work and rest periods—and the app doesn’t show specialized fields like cadence. You also can’t end your activity with a physical button. Swiping isn’t a huge deal, of course, but it does get tricky in cold temps when you’re wearing gloves.
Accuracy
The Pixel Watch was accurate with steps—if I counted 50 steps in my apartment, the watch would reach about the same value. But for me, I was more concerned with accuracy for GPS-based distance and for workout heart rate, and the Pixel Watch did a good job on both.
GPS
On the GPS front, the connection took a couple of minutes, but I never had an issue where it couldn’t connect or dropped connection. During the first couple weeks, I wore the Pixel Watch, I noticed distance inaccuracies during the first mile of my regular running route—sometimes it would be 0.05 miles above, sometimes 0.05 miles under. But as I continued on my route, the issue would get better, and my paces for the subsequent miles would be similar to what I was getting on my Garmin (a device I’ve worn on marked routes before, so I know to be accurate). Interestingly, as the weeks went on, the Pixel Watch seemed to become more and more accurate during that first tricky mile. In fact, my most recent long run on that route measured 8.12 miles on my Garmin and 8.19 miles on my Pixel, giving me readings of less than 0.01 on average per mile. Which is perfectly fine in my book!
Heart Rate
As for the heart rate, I think the Pixel Watch did a good job maintaining readings throughout the workout, especially during times of higher effort. Previously, I’ve had fitness trackers glitch during high-intensity bursts, causing a steep drop in heart rate reading. The Pixel seemed to handle both steady-state and interval work well. During my most recent running workout, which included a two-mile tempo pick-up in the middle, both my watches spit out the exact average heart rate at the end.
Battery Life
This is unfortunately the one place where I need to give the Google Pixel Watch the biggest ding: Its battery life just isn’t good. If you don’t use it much throughout the day, you can maybe get 24 hours of charge with it. For instance, on my first day with the watch, I charged it to full at 11:00 p.m. and used it for a 30-minute outdoor run the next morning. By 10:30 p.m. the following night, it was down to 9%. When I use it for longer runs, or multiple workouts (say, a walk during the day, or a strength training session at night), it fades well before the 24-hour mark.
Google Pixel Watch
Rating: 8/10
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On the plus side regarding battery, though, a quick burst of charge can be enough to get you through a workout. When I was getting ready for a run, I noticed my watch was at 8%. So I threw it on the charger while I was getting dressed and putting my shoes on, and in that time, it got up to 17%. That was enough charge for a 61-minute outdoor run, with 4% remaining at the end.
Other Smartwatch Features
One of the biggest pluses of the Pixel Watch is its integration with Fitbit, which means you get access to a whole boatload of health tracking. Each night, you’ll get a sleep score, which takes into account factors like time asleep, time in deep or REM sleep, and time spent below resting heart rate. It’ll also give your breathing rate, heart rate variability, and resting heart rate—each of which you can see in weekly, monthly, or 90-day graphs. Plus, when you wear the watch regularly, it’ll give you scores for stress management and readiness, both of which combine your heart rate variability, physical activity, and sleep patterns to determine your stress level or how ready you are to take on a workout. (Some of these metrics are only available with Fitbit premium, which costs $10/month or $80/year).
Then there are its smartwatch features, which I believe helps elevate the Google Pixel from a regular old fitness tracker. Not only can you send texts from your watch—a simple, accurate voice-activated process, as I mentioned before—but you can also take calls from your wrist, too. I often charge my phone in the evening, and it’s been great to respond quickly to a text or call without having to get up from my couch.
I also really enjoyed some of the Pixel Watch’s third-party app integration. The watch works with the Peloton app, so if you start a workout on your phone, you can see your heart rate on the screen (along with your “Strive Score,” Peloton’s metric for how hard you’re working) as you watch the class. It also works with Amazon Music and Google Maps. That means I was able to cycle through songs from my watch while listening to music in the shower, and see directions on my watch without having to pull out my Pixel phone.
Should You Buy It?
If you’re looking for a fitness tracker that’s heavy on the smartwatch features and love a whole bunch of health metrics, the Google Pixel Watch might be a good fit for you. That’s especially the case if you don’t mind charging your device often, or, at least, you know you have a particular time each day you can set aside for charging it when you won’t miss it.
If your exercise of choice leans specifically toward running, and you’re completing specific workouts with differing paces and intervals per time or distance durations, I think you may be better off with a fitness tracker that allows you more control over your workouts. Of course, you may need to compromise with missing out on some smartwatch features to get it!
