Most useful bit of the announcement, coming to all Google wearables it seems:
Blood pressure, sleep breathing, and insulin sensitivity trends
> Built on state-of-the-art Health Foundation Models trained on billions of minutes of sensor data from opted-in users and rigorously validated against gold-standard clinical measurements, these models power three new monthly trend summaries: blood pressure trends, sleep breathing quality trends, and insulin resistance trends. Rolling out soon — with your first detailed summary arriving after one month of wear — these reports illuminate metabolic, respiratory and cardiovascular shifts early, giving you clear insights to help you take control of your long-term health. Plus, monthly summaries will soon be available across our wearable portfolio, including the new Google Fitbit Air.
I reluctantly use a pixel with grapheneos, but anything that can only run google or manufacturer provided software without an independent 3rd party is trash, having looked at wearos while trying to refuse Samsungs terms/integration I also consider it a worse grade of trash than a phone since it can intentionally create codependency on other devices for management despite having more processing power than android 2-4 phones had.
It really does feel like such a waste. If I switch to Android I might as well toss my Apple Watch out and vice versa. Along with the fact they basically require the phone to do nearly anything.
My Apple Watch broke, I replaced it with a Casio with an Ollee Watch board. It doesn’t have the fancy features but it’s so nice to not have to ever think about the battery life! I wish the firmware was open source, there is a few features I would like to tweak a bit
Daily charging for normal use isn't so much an issue once it becomes a habit, but battery life during extremely long (24+ hour) activities is pretty much a make-or-break feature for me.
I've done some 50ks and while truthfully I may never do an ultra that requires that much battery life, choosing a device that can't almost feels like admitting defeat. It's kind of stupid but I know I'm not alone in that thought process.
The problem is that 30 hours slowly becomes far less over time with software bloat and battery degradation. What I hated when I had a watch with a tiny batter like this is that if I wanted both sleep tracking AND the ability to track my morning workout, I absolutely had to remember to charge before bed. If I forgot, I'd wake up with a dead or almost dead watch and have to delay my workout.
I went though a number of android wear smart watches ~10 years ago and had the same problem with all of them. I absolutely loved my Garmin 940M. I had it for years with hardly any battery degradation and it typically gave me 70-80% of the advertised battery life for many years until it was accidentally physically destroyed (caught the watch on a heavy backpack I was taking off, which ripped off the watch pin anchor from the case).
The Fenix 6 I have now is not nearly so good. It advertises 2 weeks of battery and I'm at 53% after only 4 days or so. I blame this partially on their crappy iOS support where you cannot filter apps out, so every #$%#$%^ slack message I get buzzes my watch. I had a Pixel phone when I had the 945, where you can filter out garbage notifications. This is really Garmin's fault, since apparently Coros and Pebble can filter notifications on iOS. I'll switch to one of those when this Garmin dies unless they fix their iOS support.
I still have the Pixel Watch 2 and it's much the same, battery barely lasts a day, if even that. I didn't know this going in. I had purchased the Pixel 8 I think it was and saw the watch was heavily discounted if I bundled it in so I did. Will never buy another one. I'm a heavily sleeper and need multiple alarms sometimes to wake up and would often use my watch alarm to supplement my phone. So it became a nightly routine of making sure I didn't forget to charge my watch before bed, lest it dies in the middle of the night.
I was very surprised by work put into making replacing the battery easy on the Pixel Watch 4. They designed in screw actuated clamps for the back face. Hopefully this carries over to the 5th edition.
I hate having to charge my Apple Watch. I don't want to charge it when I'm asleep because I want sleep tracking. I don't want to charge it when I'm away because then I can't keep an eye on the time without getting my phone. I don't want to charge it when I'm at home because I'll forget to put it back on before I go out or to sleep. If only there were a way to supply it power without having to take it off... or it could charge in less than like two hours...
Yeah, Apple Watch definitely needs faster charging. It wouldn't be as big of a deal if it both lasted longer, at least 3 days to get through a weekend, and could charge to a meaningful level in 15 minutes or less so I could just throw it on the charger in the morning and by the time I'm out of the shower and dressed have it be at ~80%.
Same my 4 year old Huawei watch still goes 2-3 weeks. It seems to be the devices with simpler OS's that last longer and the wearOS and apple equivalent struggle to do more than a day or two.
I guess it's dependent on what you're using the watch for. I like the sleep tracking and various overnight metrics. Find keeping an eye on RHR and HRV is one of the best early signals for overtraining.
Also quite funny considering they are highlighting the sleep features of the watch quite a bit:
"When it's time to recharge, Pixel Watch 5 and Google Health Coach elevate sleep tracking with 15% more accurate sleep stage detection, bedtime automations that automatically pause audiobooks when you drift off, and a dedicated bedtime watch face. When morning comes, Smart Wake ensures you wake up feeling refreshed. By monitoring your heart rate and movement during the 30 minutes leading up to your alarm, Smart Wake identifies optimal moments of lighter sleep to gently wake you before your set alarm time."
Sounds neat, but uh, how are you supposed to use any of that and also use the watch as a watch with a 30 hour battery life?
Only $250 for the LTE version for Google Fi subscribers. But having to charge every day seems like a major regression compared to Garmin. I do appreciate that they are competing on location accuracy, though.
Once again another watch with a utterly useless one day battery, the absolute minimum acceptable should be 3 days to cover a weekend away, only really the ultras (apple and samsung) of the full fat smart watches seem to be doing this.
Most useful bit of the announcement, coming to all Google wearables it seems:
Blood pressure, sleep breathing, and insulin sensitivity trends
That is pretty interesting. I am keen to know in the end whether better models or better sensors win this game.
I reluctantly use a pixel with grapheneos, but anything that can only run google or manufacturer provided software without an independent 3rd party is trash, having looked at wearos while trying to refuse Samsungs terms/integration I also consider it a worse grade of trash than a phone since it can intentionally create codependency on other devices for management despite having more processing power than android 2-4 phones had.
It really does feel like such a waste. If I switch to Android I might as well toss my Apple Watch out and vice versa. Along with the fact they basically require the phone to do nearly anything.
30 hours of battery life is a deal breaker. I don't want to charge my watch every day.
I've been using the Garmin Forerunner for a few years now and the battery life is 2 weeks!
My WiThings ScanWatch lasts a full month. But it's not a phone-on-my-wrist, it looks more like an analog watch and just has some sensors in it.
The charger on the 4 both sucks and blows. Countless times I’ve taken it off the charger to find 0%.
The nice strap they showed in the adverts broke instantly when I took it out of the box. Two pins sheared right off the in the middle of the band.
WearOS Apps are trash.
I wish I had gone garmin. ;(
My Apple Watch broke, I replaced it with a Casio with an Ollee Watch board. It doesn’t have the fancy features but it’s so nice to not have to ever think about the battery life! I wish the firmware was open source, there is a few features I would like to tweak a bit
If it charges fast enough this shouldn't matter. You just charge it while you take a shower and as long as it charges enough for the day it fine.
You sound like the sales rep at the Apple store. I was perplexed.
Meanwhile, I had to wonder how many people take showers that are over half an hour every day.
Daily charging for normal use isn't so much an issue once it becomes a habit, but battery life during extremely long (24+ hour) activities is pretty much a make-or-break feature for me.
I've done some 50ks and while truthfully I may never do an ultra that requires that much battery life, choosing a device that can't almost feels like admitting defeat. It's kind of stupid but I know I'm not alone in that thought process.
The problem is that 30 hours slowly becomes far less over time with software bloat and battery degradation. What I hated when I had a watch with a tiny batter like this is that if I wanted both sleep tracking AND the ability to track my morning workout, I absolutely had to remember to charge before bed. If I forgot, I'd wake up with a dead or almost dead watch and have to delay my workout.
I went though a number of android wear smart watches ~10 years ago and had the same problem with all of them. I absolutely loved my Garmin 940M. I had it for years with hardly any battery degradation and it typically gave me 70-80% of the advertised battery life for many years until it was accidentally physically destroyed (caught the watch on a heavy backpack I was taking off, which ripped off the watch pin anchor from the case).
The Fenix 6 I have now is not nearly so good. It advertises 2 weeks of battery and I'm at 53% after only 4 days or so. I blame this partially on their crappy iOS support where you cannot filter apps out, so every #$%#$%^ slack message I get buzzes my watch. I had a Pixel phone when I had the 945, where you can filter out garbage notifications. This is really Garmin's fault, since apparently Coros and Pebble can filter notifications on iOS. I'll switch to one of those when this Garmin dies unless they fix their iOS support.
I still have the Pixel Watch 2 and it's much the same, battery barely lasts a day, if even that. I didn't know this going in. I had purchased the Pixel 8 I think it was and saw the watch was heavily discounted if I bundled it in so I did. Will never buy another one. I'm a heavily sleeper and need multiple alarms sometimes to wake up and would often use my watch alarm to supplement my phone. So it became a nightly routine of making sure I didn't forget to charge my watch before bed, lest it dies in the middle of the night.
I was very surprised by work put into making replacing the battery easy on the Pixel Watch 4. They designed in screw actuated clamps for the back face. Hopefully this carries over to the 5th edition.
https://youtu.be/3pQWBFBIU2U?si=HEefZLDiIurcBj5K&t=61
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Google+Pixel+Watch+4+Battery+Re...
I hate having to charge my Apple Watch. I don't want to charge it when I'm asleep because I want sleep tracking. I don't want to charge it when I'm away because then I can't keep an eye on the time without getting my phone. I don't want to charge it when I'm at home because I'll forget to put it back on before I go out or to sleep. If only there were a way to supply it power without having to take it off... or it could charge in less than like two hours...
Yeah, Apple Watch definitely needs faster charging. It wouldn't be as big of a deal if it both lasted longer, at least 3 days to get through a weekend, and could charge to a meaningful level in 15 minutes or less so I could just throw it on the charger in the morning and by the time I'm out of the shower and dressed have it be at ~80%.
Especially when Garmin and some other watches last a week or more.
Same my 4 year old Huawei watch still goes 2-3 weeks. It seems to be the devices with simpler OS's that last longer and the wearOS and apple equivalent struggle to do more than a day or two.
It's less of a big deal than I thought it'd be.
I switched from a Garmin to an Apple Watch - which has less battery life - for some development work I had to do and it turned out I barely noticed.
Charge phone, charge watch, charge headphones just became a nightly checklist.
But unlike headphones and your phone, you want to wear your watch at night to monitor sleep
At least that's a major selling point for these smart watches
I charge mine (older Pixel Watch model) when sitting down and coding. Or when showering if on the weekend and not coding. It charges very quickly.
I guess it's dependent on what you're using the watch for. I like the sleep tracking and various overnight metrics. Find keeping an eye on RHR and HRV is one of the best early signals for overtraining.
> 30 hours of battery life is a deal breaker.
Also quite funny considering they are highlighting the sleep features of the watch quite a bit:
"When it's time to recharge, Pixel Watch 5 and Google Health Coach elevate sleep tracking with 15% more accurate sleep stage detection, bedtime automations that automatically pause audiobooks when you drift off, and a dedicated bedtime watch face. When morning comes, Smart Wake ensures you wake up feeling refreshed. By monitoring your heart rate and movement during the 30 minutes leading up to your alarm, Smart Wake identifies optimal moments of lighter sleep to gently wake you before your set alarm time."
Sounds neat, but uh, how are you supposed to use any of that and also use the watch as a watch with a 30 hour battery life?
i spent an hour the other week looking for my pine watch charger, this may inspire another 20 minutes digging around the house
Genuinely I'm more curious what amount (or lack of) governance their is in this version of gemini for health vs asking gemini directly.
> * Up to 30 hours of battery life on the 41mm (40 hours on the 45mm) with fast charging.
Is this a typo? I get 20 days on the Pebble Time 2.
Still no rectangular phone option. WTF is wrong with Google?
Round watches are not cool. They end up inconvenient and uncomfortable.
Only $250 for the LTE version for Google Fi subscribers. But having to charge every day seems like a major regression compared to Garmin. I do appreciate that they are competing on location accuracy, though.
Apparently the GPS is computed in the cloud, which means this only works given LTE coverage or if you also carry your paired smartphone. https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/devices/pixel/pix...
Once again another watch with a utterly useless one day battery, the absolute minimum acceptable should be 3 days to cover a weekend away, only really the ultras (apple and samsung) of the full fat smart watches seem to be doing this.