Review: Google Pixel Watch 5 — same look, better specs, more Gemini AI

Google recently released the Pixel Watch 5 and although AI has been present in other smartwatches previously, including previous generations of Pixel Watch, it was never been as front and centre as it is in the Pixel Watch 5.

Saying Google is all-in on AI is an understatement, and while many of us struggle to see AI’s real-world usefulness, the Pixel Watch 5 aims to put Gemini AI front and centre, helping improve your day-to-day interactions by surfacing hints, schedules, and more to streamline your life.

Google has added some meaningful upgrades to the Pixel Watch 5 with 50% more RAM, now at 3GB, doubling the storage to 64GB and a 20% faster chipset, the Snapdragon W5 Gen2, all aimed at being able to perform more tasks on board and offline.

The Pixel Watch 5 starts at $649 for the 41mm Wi-Fi version and $699 for the 45 mm Wi-Fi version.

I’ve had the 45mm Pixel Watch 5 on my wrist for the past few weeks, and I much prefer this larger size.  It is still small compared to some other smartwatches and certainly smaller than most fashion watches, but the 41mm option is there for those with smaller wrists.

Comfort and design

The Pixel Watch 5 sports the same design as previous generations, especially the Pixel Watch 4, with the same domed glass and matching Actua 360 domed display.  The display can reach up to 3,000 nits and adjusts brightness based on ambient light.

In my experience with the Pixel Watch 5, I’ve found it easy to read under most conditions, though extremely bright sunlight made it a struggle, as it does on all displays.

The new watch band that arrives out of the box is relatively flexible and comfortable on the wrist, and doesn’t seem to grab or pull on the skin like so many plastic-based bands do.  That said, it’s not the most comfortable band I’ve ever used but if you are looking for that you should be looking at buying a separate band such as the woven ones from Google – Dan swears by them.

The watch still looks like a pebble which can be a divisive design, with some loving it and some hating it.  Personally, I don’t prefer the minimalistic design, but you can buy watch housings to put the watch in if you want the Google Watch experience with a different look.

As you would expect from a health-focused watch, the Pixel Watch 5 features an IP68 rating for durability and a 5ATM water resistance rating.  You can apparently wear it swimming or on the beach with these ratings, so it’s great for folks who get their fitness this way.

Everyday Use

Before we get into the fancy new health and fitness and Gemini features, a quick word about using the Pixel Watch 5 everyday.  The Pixel Watch 5 offers a fluid, fast, intuitive, and easy-to-use experience.  Some watches try and make their interfaces too fancy and overdo all the gestures required, in the end making it too complicated.  The Wear OS experience on the Pixel Watch 5 is how it should be.

The watch ran smoothly all day, delivered notifications when needed, and let me respond easily.  Answering phone calls on the watch was also easy, and the audio was clear on both ends.  

The interface is the best on the market.  It not about the watch faces available as stock, they are a dime a dozen, and you can build your own if you wish, either by using Google’s AI or in a dedicated app yourself, such as Watchmaker.  How easy the operating system and interface are to navigate should be a big factor in whether a smartwatch is for you, and that’s what stands out about the Pixel Watch 5.  

New software features

One of the new headline software features this year (aside from Gemini being everywhere) is Auto Bedtime Mode.  The new Pixel Watch 5 detects sleep and turns on Bedtime Mode, disabling notifications and the always-on display to prevent interruptions.  Of course, you can toggle it on or off manually.

I found this incredibly useful and the Bedtime Mode watch face is quite good – it’s red time display, only in a large digital font, making it not bright enough to wake you up but easily enough to see if you do want to know the time.  You can still have the watch notify you of some calls and notifications, just like DND mode on a phone.  

Auto Bedtime Mode also switches off automatically after you’ve been out of bed for more than 15 minutes which is handy.

I found this automatic switching to Bedtime Mode very handy, because often you might forget or just do it wrong and there’s nothing worse than trying to get back to sleep after being woken up by an unwanted notification.

Another useful feature on the Pixel Watch 5 is the revamped Camera app.  It offers an easy way to control the camera app on your phone, but unfortunately, it is only compatible with Pixel smartphones.  I used this extensively at the golf simulator, where I could start and stop swing recordings.  

The only issue I had with that was that you can use gestures to start and stop a video (or capture an image) and in the process of gripping my club and swinging it, it sometimes started or stopped when I didn’t want it to.

The Recorder app also came in handy.  I could quickly hit record on conversations and things I wanted to record.  Having it as a simple swipe to the left to open the recorder app was very useful and I used it quite a bit – especially when my golf coach was giving me a couple of quick notes.  Recordings sync back to your phone, where you can edit, transcribe, or summarise them using Gemini.

Gemini AI

The focus on Gemini and AI on this watch is extensive, so if you’re averse to AI, as many people are becoming, steer clear.  For me, I’m not a massive fan of AI for the sake of AI but personally, I feel that AI, like any software, can be used for good (I just wish it didn’t come at the cost of the environment so much).

The AI features on the Pixel Watch 5 are extensive and that’s a choice.  Google has pushed the AI to make your life easier for a long time and this is the case here as well.

This watch has so many Gemini features that Google could have named it the Gemini Pixel Watch, but that is where they have been headed for the last couple of years.  In my eyes, the headline features are:

• At a Glance
  • Just as it works on a Pixel smartphone, At a Glance surfaces relevant live information on your watch, when you need it.  You can simply “glance” down at your wrist to see what you need to see at that time – eg., boarding passes, workouts, timers, current navigation and more.
  • I found this mostly useful for workouts and timers but it helped with calendar events too, something I often forget about.

• Proactive suggestions
  • Proactive suggestions are very closely related to At a Glance.  This feature though, provides suggestions before you need them based on what you are doing.  It does this using access from Google apps such as Gmail, Messages and Calendar – to be truly useful, it needs to be able to do that with ALL apps, but then there are a heap of permissions issues, and do you really want one of the Terminator’s bots having access to every single piece of data about you?
• Personal intelligence
  • Personal Intelligence is Gemini applying its intelligence to your interaction and uses of Google apps, including Search and your chat history.
• Offline
  • Offline use is basically Gemini performing commands related to your watch, such as setting a timer, turning Wi-Fi on, opening an app, or starting a workout, without needing connectivity.  Google’s device commands have gone backwards since it introduced Gemini. Assistant used to be so useful on your phone, watch, in the car, and more, but Gemini hasn’t been able to do what Assistant could.  Hopefully this is a step towards Google correcting this issue.

So they sound incredibly useful but how useful were they really in a day-to-day sense?  At a glance is handy for calendar events and the proactive suggestions I used once or twice but to be honest, I didn’t use it all that much.  It might be different if you don’t use your phone much, but it is just easier to have your phone do all this.  The watch display is smaller, so it’s harder to read and type than a phone, and most people have their phone with them, so we use that for most of these things.

The biggest uses for Gemini on the watch were At a Glance, so you don’t forget information or events you need to know or do at that time, and Offline mode, which should always have been possible.  

Health and fitness

Google may have improved the engine under the hood but still uses the same sensors as its predecessor, but these new sensors have gained a heap of new smarts and capabilities.  

New features include blood pressure and insulin trends, sleep and breathing quality monitoring, support for guided strength workouts and faster, more accurate health and fitness data.

All the new fitness and health measurements live in the Google Health app, which is well laid out, looks good, and is easy to use, without hiding too much behind multiple menus.

When you first start wearing the watch, the health metrics are tracked to provide the software and AI insights into you and your health requirements and stats.  It uses your sleep quantity and quality to determine how hard you can push on your workouts before you hit the overtraining mark.  

This is essential for those who want the best from their body and workouts.  It is one thing (of many) that WHOOP does really well, better than anyone in fact.  The Pixel Watch 5 isn’t up to WHOOP’s standard yet, but it still provides a good basic insight into your body’s “readiness.”

Health guardian

The Pixel Watch 5 features a new Health Guardian, designed to give you proactive alerts about health conditions that may be developing before they occur.  

The proactive alerts include:

• Blood Pressure Trends that tracks persistent pulse patterns using heart and motion sensors to estimate your blood pressure trend.  It provides the user with monthly updates on this and although Google suggest that you can use it to adjust your lifestyle and measure your own blood pressure, I’m going to be the sensible one and suggest you go and see your doctor.
  • I did not see any blood pressure trends pop up for me, but my blood pressure and I are under the supervision of a doctor and I already take medication for it.

• Insulin Resistance Trends gives the user a sense of how efficiently your body absorbs energy from food.  Google say that it gives a gentle reminder to you to check and tweak your routines but once again I’m going to suggest you see your GP instead and get it investigated properly if there is an issue with your insulin resistance.

Sleep Tracking

Google has advertised the Pixel Watch 5 as having its “most accurate sleep tracking” ever, so while they are saying its not the best available on the market, they are saying they are doing it better than they have done before.

Personally, I’m not a fan of wearing a watch, or any device, while sleeping but for the sake of this review I wore the watch overnight.  Aside from interrupting my sleep when I tucked my arm under me and the watch dug into my wrist, it wasn’t too bad.  The increased comfort of the band helps but it still does disrupt my sleep at times – your mileage may vary.

After significant improvements to its Convolutional AI model, Google can now track time spent in each sleep stage with 15% more accuracy.  This allows for greater insights into the sleep quality.  It looked the same to me but the main thing is it’s reporting where it can give you more accurate reports and insights – this is unlikely something you are going to notice, so you’ll have to trust Google on this….   

Workouts

The workout function of the Pixel Watch 5 was a bit disappointing. Sure, it was able to automatically track a walk or run but it thought a round of golf was a cycling workout — and that was it starting a good 30 minutes after my golf workout. It was unable to automatically trigger any gym workouts so this feature certainly needs some more work.

At this stage the step-by-step workouts are “Coming Soon” so I was unable to test that. I’m not sure to be honest why you would need this as most people will take their phone with them during a workout and will feel more comfortable with their phone in their pocket/gym bag, than wearing a watch — I know I do.

In the Google Health app, you can log a workout after the fact, but it doesn’t seem to match that workout up with any metrics measured by the watch. This is another thing that WHOOP does really well. The Pixel Watch 5 is really good for walks and runs with an improved GPS and running metrics but if you need a full picture of all your workouts and they are varied, there are much better dedicated options than the Pixel Watch 5. I think it’s safe to call the Pixel Watch 5 more of a health watch than a workout watch at this stage.

Battery life

The Pixel Watch 5 uses the same charging pin method and charger type as the Pixel Watch 4, and although the battery is slightly bigger (465mAh vs 455mAh), I found the battery life was longer.  I used to get about a day and a half out of the Watch 4 but the Pixel Watch 5 delivers more than that.

I found the battery life was slightly more than two days.  I’m not sure how this is possible, given that Google states a 30-40 hour battery life for the watch, but it is what it is.  I am impressed with the battery life I have been able to get with the Pixel Watch 5.

The charger supports fast charging, with a quick 15-minute charge delivering 50% battery – enough for a full day for me.  I often realised in the morning that I hadn’t charged my watch for the day, so I quickly threw it on the charger either before I left home or on my way to my first job.

Final thoughts

The Google Pixel Watch 5 looks much the same as the Pixel Watch 4, which is divisive at best, but has seen many upgrades in not just hardware but also software capabilities. With the Pixel Watch 5, Google is going all in on its AI, Gemini. The new AI capabilities offer many useful options and that is one of the reasons why I consider the Pixel Watch 5 possibly the best smartwatch for Android users (although it is far from the best looking). If you want a watch that you can use to keep track of notifications, run some apps, control your camera, get directions, control your media and other app-related functions, then the Pixel Watch 5 could be in your future.

For health purposes, the Google Watch 5 is also good, with the new capabilities offering some decent proactive health warnings and an AI-based health coach to give you answers and possible solutions. It is now even better and more accurate at tracking your sleep and helping you get the most out of your body and your exercise.

For fitness, the Pixel Watch 5 is barely satisfactory. For runners and walkers, it is really good, with the GPS more accurate than ever and the running features that make you get the most out of your runs. For other workouts and exercise though, it falls behind many other watches. For a fitness watch, I pass on the Google Watch 5 unless you use it primarily for running.

The new Pixel Watch 5 is available in new colours: Obsidian, Fog, Olive and Canyon. Olive features an all-new Satin Pyrite casing, while the 41 mm is available with a new band colour, Canyon.   You can pick it up at all good retailers, with the 41mm starting at 9 for the Wi-Fi version and the 45mm starting at 9 for the Wi-Fi version.