The new health-tracking features will come to the Pixel Watch 3, 4, and 5—and there's an added tool for those in Europe
Google has begun rolling out blood pressure and insulin resistance trend reports after first teasing the Health Guardian features alongside the launch of the Pixel Watch 5.
The Google Health app will start receiving those features this week, with the first trend reports expected to arrive in early October.
What the new Health Guardian features will track
Starting with blood pressure trends, the company says it trained this feature using billions of minutes of raw heart rate and movement data. It will detect ongoing changes in your heart health using data collected over several days. Specifically, you’ll need to provide five days' worth of data per week to get that information.
Then there are insulin trends, which were similarly pre-trained using over 1 trillion minutes of data from 5 million opted-in users. According to Google, this feature focuses on metabolic health by reviewing your physiological data over several weeks to detect changes in how your body responds to insulin.
A sleep-breathing feature is rolling out too. It tracks your breathing while you sleep and shows how much of the night your breathing stayed within the optimal range. Each month, you will get a report that highlights any long-term changes or patterns.
No matter how amazing these features sound, they are not meant to replace medical tools. Google explains that they are for general wellness and information, not for clinical readings or diagnosing health issues.
Who gets the new health features?
With this update, Pixel Watch 3, 4, and 5 owners can now begin tracking blood pressure trends, insulin resistance trends, and sleep breathing quality. And if you have a Pixel Watch 4 or 5 in Europe, you'll also get Google's Breathing Emergency Detection tool, which can contact emergency services if your watch detects a serious drop in blood oxygen.
All of these new features are free for Pixel Watch users. As for Fitbit Air owners with a Google Health Premium subscription, blood pressure and insulin resistance trends will arrive later this year, but Google hasn't announced an exact date yet.
Since these are trend insights, not medical readings, we’re curious how helpful they’ll be day to day. We’re planning to try out the new features as soon as possible and share our full thoughts once we’ve had a chance to use them.
