It’s Hard Not to Like the Beautifully Round Pixel Watch 4

There’s an air of levity and playfulness in the Pixel Watch 4 that’s hard to find on any other high-end smartwatch. Much of this is due to Google’s Wear OS redesign, which—much like Material 3 Expressive on Android—emphasizes bold colors, shapes that morph as you scroll, and a bubbly personality. Pair this with the unique, domed glass and domed display sitting underneath, and you’ll find it hard to look away.

It is unfortunate, then, that some of this beauty is sapped by the default strap included in the box. Unlike Apple, Google doesn’t offer strap choices at checkout; you have to purchase a strap separately. The included Active Band is dull—a disservice! But if my biggest complaint is the strap, then the Pixel Watch 4 must be a dang good smartwatch. Indeed, it remains the best option for most Android owners, not least because it’s finally repairable.

Off the Dome

I’ve admired the domed glass on the Pixel Watch since the original, but it’s made even better here with a domed display, meaning the screen curves a bit around the edges. That improves glanceability when you look at the watch from an angle, but it also just makes watch faces look more elegant, like a Junghans Max Bill. The bezels are smaller, so you’re getting more screen on these watches. (I tested the 45-mm case, but you can opt for a 41-mm case.)

There are a handful of new watch faces to choose from, and I’ve settled on Field (pictured here in this review), which gives me a lot of information without looking garish. The smartwatch is comfortable to wear too—yes, even with the included strap I dislike so much. There’s less of a gap between the lugs and my wrist compared with the Pixel Watch 3, and the curved back doesn’t feel like it’s poking too deeply.

The speakers are better, and to my ears, calls came through well enough. I mostly tested this with Gemini, though, and I rarely had issues hearing the voice assistant’s responses (more on this later). The screen is easy to read in direct sunlight, thanks to the new 3,000 nits of peak brightness, and the watch’s haptics feel more precise yet gentle; no harsh vibrations here.

It’s all powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon W5 Gen 2 chipset, and outside of some initial stutters when I was downloading and updating apps, operating the Pixel Watch 4 feels smooth.

On the battery front, Google’s offering is still among the best for a feature-rich smartwatch at this price (save for the OnePlus Watch 3), though I wasn’t quite able to hit the 40 hours of battery life of Google’s claim for the 45-mm version. I usually eked out a day and a half, though that extended closer to two days after I turned off the always-on display.

What is more impressive is the charging times. I’ve popped the Pixel Watch 4 on its new charging dock, and after getting ready in the morning for about 15 minutes, I’ve seen the battery jump to over 50 percent from near empty. The annoying caveat is that this is the third time Google has changed the charger in four generations, meaning you cannot use an older Pixel Watch charger—and that feels wasteful. The dock could stand to be a little heftier or use stronger magnets too. I’ve accidentally knocked the watch off the charger when trying to reach for it.

In general, Google seriously needs to offer more ways to charge the Pixel Watch 4. I don’t want to have to dig out the cable from under my nightstand when I want to travel. Why doesn’t the charging dock have a USB-C port instead, à la the OnePlus Watch 3 or the new Tag Heuer Calibre 5? There are hardly any third-party charging solutions, let alone a 3-in-1 or 2-in-1 solution, so you can recharge your phone, earbuds, and watch simultaneously. Apple has the upper hand here.

Peak Health

Google says the Pixel Watch 4 has its most accurate sleep tracking to date, and my results have generally been quite precise, save one or two nights where it thought I woke up a little earlier than I did. (My results were very similar to the Apple Watch Series 10.) It’s great at understanding when I wake up in the middle of the night, like when my dog kept whimpering to be let on the bed.

Speaking of sleep, I very much enjoy that I don’t need to trigger bedtime mode or turn it off when I wake up; the watch automatically does it. Similarly, the watch knows if it’s placed on a charger, and if the charger isn’t plugged in it’ll give you a little alert. And if you’re a swimmer, you’ll appreciate the automatic water lock to prevent false screen touches, though my colleague Adrienne So found that the watch needs to be submerged at least a foot for this to work. Still, little touches like this make for an overall richer experience.

The improved sleep data funnels into features like Daily Readiness in the Fitbit app. I have been getting very poor sleep of late, and my readiness scores are atrocious. I can actually feel this during my workouts, so the scores are a good reminder of when I need to take it a little easy.

Activity tracking has been spot on, with my data generally matching the Apple Watch Series 10, from heart rate to distance traveled. The dual-band GPS accurately maps your route when you start a workout, too, at least here in New York City. The big change this year is how these activities are tracked. You have two options.

The default is passive detection. Just start working out, and 30 minutes after you’re done, you’ll get a notification asking you to confirm your workout; it gets better the more you confirm, and it currently works with “common” activities like runs, bike rides, and rowing. It has been doing this with all of my walks, and when I forgot to start an indoor rowing workout session, the watch automatically recorded and categorized it.

The caveat is that you cannot see your workout information on the watch if you have this passive method turned on. You can start the workout manually, but if you forget, the watch will not ping you 10 minutes into your workout to ask if you want to start tracking. Some folks may find that annoying, but at least you can be happy knowing the data is being recorded; you just have to wait a few minutes to see it post-workout.

If you do want activity tracking reminders, you can turn on “Start workout reminders” in the Fitbit Exercise app on the Pixel Watch 4, but then this disables the passive recording feature. I actually prefer letting Google’s algorithms figure out my workout and give me the data later, though it would be nice to occasionally see my workout data in real time when I forget to manually start it.

I don’t bike much these days, but cyclists may find the new real-time bike streaming feature handy. Start a bike workout on the watch, and you’ll automatically get a notification on the phone. Tap it, and you’ll be able to see your metrics like heart rate, speed, and distance on your smartphone, streamed from the watch. It worked seamlessly in my test.

Unfortunately, Google didn’t have the new Fitbit app experience powered by an AI coach available just yet. It’s supposed to launch later this month, so we’ll have to wait and see how it changes the fitness and health experience of the Pixel Watch 4 (and all Fitbit devices).

This smartwatch retains several nifty tricks from prior models, like Loss of Pulse detection, blood oxygen and skin temperature measurements, an electrocardiogram, not to mention fall detection. My colleague Adrienne actually fell during a run while wearing the Watch 4, however, and it did not detect the fall at all. That might be because she moved before the 30 seconds were up, which is the time the Watch 4 waits to detect movement. (After that time, the watch will vibrate and sound an alarm, and if still no movement is detected after 60 seconds, it will call the emergency services.)

New on the watch is satellite communications, just like the Apple Watch Ultra 3. Google only lets you use it in emergencies, so I wasn’t able to test it lest I have the police knocking on my door. I did try the demo version of the feature available in the watch’s settings, and it’s very similar to how it works on Pixel phones, guiding you toward a nearby satellite.

Gemini Fix

This is Google’s first smartwatch with Gemini powering the assistant experience instead of Google Assistant, and it’s a move for the better. Gemini is much more helpful at answering random questions throughout the day, and it can handle tasks on the watch, like when I asked it to start an indoor rowing workout or to show me my heart rate. You will need an internet connection on your smartphone to use it, which might not work for some folks; Google needs to make local functions available offline.

My favorite part is how you access Gemini. Sure, you can push the top button, or say, “Hey Google.” But you can also just raise the watch to your face and talk. When it detects this motion, Gemini activates for about two seconds to see if you’re about to ask a question or say a command.

Raise to Talk is far from perfect—it sometimes doesn’t activate, and the visual cue shows up only on the watch face, so it’s hard to know when it’s listening if you’re in another app—but it’s so much nicer to raise my wrist and ask a question without saying a hot word or pushing a button. You do get some false positives when Gemini thinks you’re talking to it and spits out an answer, but you can adjust the sensitivity to help reduce them.

This feature has made me use my smartwatch more. If you need to look something up during a conversation, just raise your wrist. When I head upstairs at the end of the night, I raise my wrist and ask Gemini to turn off my living room lights. There is a learning curve in getting it to activate reliably, with a pronounced wrist gesture and annunciating clearly into the watch, but Google still needs to refine it for a consistent experience.

Another area that could use more polish? Transferring the watch to a new phone. It’s fantastic when it works, but on my first attempt switching from the Pixel 10 Pro to the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, the transfer failed, and I had to reset the watch. Thankfully, on a second attempt a week later, it worked flawlessly.

How a watch feels on your wrist is just as important as its capabilities, and I thoroughly enjoy both wearing and interacting with the Pixel Watch 4. It has all the extras I want, has superb health and fitness tracking capabilities, and thankfully, it still costs just $349 ($399 for the larger model). It’s repairable, too! Google lets you swap out the battery and display, and the process is very easy.

Now the only thing I have to do is switch out this dumb band.