I’ve been chasing a great smartwatch for years and despite trying a bunch, none of them have reall stuck. A smartwatch plays in a difficult space, a phone is essential, headphones or earbuds, also essential, but a smartwatch is a luxury, given there’s almost nothing you can do on the watch, you can’t do on your phone, with the exception of health measurements.
My challenges have been focused in two key areas of smartwatch ownership. The first is around the display, often displaying a little information, but the real estate required to truly be useful, just isn’t there, leaving you to retrieve the phone from your pocket which begs the question, what’s the point?
Of course the smartwatch’s primary focus is the watch component, and if you have a job, or life that requires you to regularly check the time, this works as expected, but any watch will do that. The second challenge I had was around recharging. While I have charged my phone every night for decades, I just couldn’t get in the habbit of charging the phone.
The dream was once to have a bowl of tech products beside the bed that you could simply drop your smart device into and wake up with all of them charged. The reality is these watches have prioritery chargers and often the watch has to be positoned perfectly, or you’ll wake up with a flat watch and ultimately leave it at home.
Thankfully Google designers have made a couple of very critical changes in the Pixel Watch 4 that helps address both of main complaints and I’ve been wearing it daily for the last few weeks.
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Google’s watch display is large and high resolution, which means the content on it is easily readable and importantly, there’s enough pixels to display destailed content to you. The big change here is the ability to show media in notifications. This single change means that when your watch vibrates with a notification, it’s a quick flick of the wrist to review and you get to see media like photos from social media, or detailed calendar reminders, which quickly allows you to know if the notification deserves your attention right now.
The other saving grace and massive interface change is the inclusion of Google Gemini. Just raise your wrist and and start talking to Gemini. This is incredibly powerful, extending your access to the collective knowledge of the internet and critically, avoiding the need to grab your phone to access it.
If you purchase the Pixel Watch 4, it comes with the latest Google Wear OS v6.0. Back in January 2021, Google acquired fitness company Fitbit which is now integrated into Google’s hardware division and is now well integated into the watch.
One important drivers for people to buy a smartwatch are the health tracking properties. If you’re into fitness and looking to measure your metrics to compare over time and track progress, then you’ll really enjoy the Fitbit integration. Select the right watch face and you can glance at your progress throughout the day, or the Fitbit app on the watch provides a great level of detail into your health data. There’s a lot on offer right on your wrist and I barely ever found my self wanting to access the data that required the app (mostly historical data). This is a really great win for the fitness-minded smartwatch owners.
Design
The fundamental design language of the Pixel Watch 4 is instantly recognisable, retaining the smooth, pebble-like domed glass and circular form factor that distinguishes it from the more traditional, rugged aesthetic seen on competitors like the Samsung Galaxy Watch or Apple Watch Ultra series.
For the Watch 4, Google focused on subtle refinement rather than a dramatic overhaul, responding directly to feedback regarding the previous generations. The most notable change is the further slimming down of the display bezel and while this isn’t quite edge-to-edge, the feeling when using it, is very close to. I’m sure there’ll be a future revision that actually achieves a true edge-to-edge, but for now this is close enough where your brain doesn’t think about it, a big improvement over early versions.
The watch comes in both 41mm and 45mm models (reviewed). The choice between the two is going to be a personal one, but I’d encourage anyone to go with the larger size, despite the extra cost. As we take another annual update, we also get an update to the Corning Gorilla Glass, now upgraded to Victus 2 which provides better protection for those who wear their watches while engaging in rugged outdoor activities.
As much as I think there’s a world where the crown goes away in favour of multiple edge buttons or even a touch surface on the side of the watchface, I have to admit, it does work well, with the UI being utlra-responsive top scrolls and button presses.
When it comes to the band design, the active band inlcuded should be considered as the starting point. Made of something called Fluoroelastomer with soft-touch coating, the band is sweat resistance, but looks a little cheap int he grey colour, I think the black may look better. Thankfully Google’s fast clip system means you can easily switch this out for one of the other compatible bands. Google went to town with Pixel Watch Band options, including the new Gradient Stretch Band, the Loop Band, Sport Band, Woven Band, Crafted Leather Band, Two-Tone Leather Band, Metal Mesh, slim and link Bands. These add a real level of personalisation and transforms the look of the watch entirely. These range form around A$80 right up to $300.
Compared to the previous Pixel Watch models, the fourth generation feels more polished, particularly the new 45mm size, which accommodates a larger display without feeling overly bulky. This design of the Pixel Watch 4 is arguably one of the best-looking smartwatch on the market, achieving a delicate balance between classic jewellery and futuristic tech.
Performance
The performance leap in the Google Pixel Watch 4 is primarily driven by the introduction of the highly efficient Snapdragon W6 Gen 1 chipset, specifically tuned to work with Wear OS 6.0. This new architecture provides substantially improved processing power for demanding tasks, such as on-device machine learning for health analysis and complex map rendering, while drastically reducing energy consumption.
Navigation through the Wear OS interface is buttery smooth, with apps launching instantly and background processes like heart rate monitoring, despite this, I never experienced performance slowdown.
The most critical performance metric improvement is the battery life. Google says the 41mm model will reliably delivers up to 30 hours of use with the always-on display enabled, while the larger 45mm version (reviewed) can push closer to the promised 40 hours. While I charged most nights, there were times where I wore it at night to test sleep tracking and the watch still got me through the next day, remembering the watch spends much fo the day sleeping between notifications or user inputs.
What I found from my sleep data was what I already knew, I get terrible sleep right now. What this data lacked was actionable items I could take to improve, outside say going to bed earlier and sleeping longer.
This finally breaks the single-day barrier for the series, meaning users can track their sleep and still have enough juice to make it through the next full day of activity without panic charging. Charging speed also sees a bump, with a 50 per cent charge achieved in under 20 minutes, leveraging the watch’s quick-charge capabilities. This is great if you have some time at lunch to drop it on the charger and you’ll extend the charge quickly.
In terms of fitness and health performance, the watch packs loads of features. The watch is capable of tracking health stats like heart rate, steps, sleep and more. What I would have like to see was the default setting, or at least an option during onboarding, that enabled automatical exercise detection. This is available, but by default I found I was left to start/stop workouts. This list of activities that can be measured is seriously impressive and if it doesn’t get it correct, you can adjust later.
I found there’s a bit of confusion between when I should look in the Google Fit app vs Fitbit, and the Fitbit app was certainly very pushy about getting a Premium subscription. A Google Pixel Watch 4 purchased comes with the gateway drug of 6-months free, the price afterwards is wild, at $14.99 per month, that’s a big number for some digital coaching.
When it comes to location accuracy, Google offers a checkbox to improve location accuracy which I enabled, allowing Google to elverage information from WiFi access points, mobiel network towers, GPS and sensor data such as accelerometer and gyroscope.
This accuracy is helped by an improved antenna design and multi-band frequency support, ensuring accurate pace and distance tracking even in dense urban areas. From an internal hardware perspective, the inclusion of 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage ensures the watch paired with a Pixel phone is a really great ecosystem to live in.
Features
The Google Pixel Watch 4 is packed with software and hardware enhancements, making it the most feature-rich Android watch available. It seamlessly integrates the best of Google’s artificial intelligence with advanced Fitbit health capabilities.
Gemini On-Wrist
A dedicated version of Google’s multimodal AI is available directly from the watch face or a quick double-press of the crown, allowing for contextually aware queries, complex task automation, and instant summarisation of messages and emails on the fly.
Multi-Day Battery Life
The new processor and larger battery combinations deliver up to 40 hours of continuous use on the 45mm model, allowing for multiple nights of sleep tracking without requiring a daily charge ritual.
Next-Generation Health Tracking
In addition to ECG, SpO2, and skin temperature monitoring, the Pixel Watch 4 introduces advanced respiratory analysis during sleep, looking for subtle changes in breathing patterns that contribute to the daily Readiness Score.
Loss-of-Pulse Detection (LoPD) and Emergency SOS
Building on previous safety features, the LoPD feature, using FDA-cleared technology, can detect life-threatening cardiac events and automatically trigger an emergency response call with the wearer’s exact location, a major leap in wearable safety.
Enhanced Display Brightness and Responsiveness
The Actua display now hits a peak brightness of 2500 nits, making it exceptionally readable under the harsh Australian sun, while the adaptive refresh rate (down to 1 Hz) improves power efficiency for the always-on display mode.
Issues and Opportunities
While the Pixel Watch 4 is an outstanding step forward, a few areas still offer opportunities for Google to refine the device in future iterations.
The biggest complaint I have is the default band. While it enables the clean aesthetic, the way it folds back in on itself after being clipped over the metal stud, the excess band tucks back in against your arm hairs and I found it pulls on them which was uncomfortable. Maybe this isn’t an issue for everyone, and it’s fine once one, but it did grind on me this isn’t better.
Thankfully there are alternative bands that have a different latch method and don’t suffer from this problem. I also think the choice of material contributes to this as well, it has almost a waxy, grippy feel, which of course is aimed at being fine being wet, and probably UV resistant, but does feature this comfort problem.
The design, while beautiful, is still purely focused fitness and I think Google has an opportunity to introduce a true “Pro” or “Ultra” model that looks high-end, for the business professional who doesn’t go hiking on the weekend. Make it of stainless steel or pure titanium casing, make the watch face even larger to rival the Galaxy Watch Ultra, and use this to introduce the true edge-to-edge display at a premium price tag and I’d be all in.
Price and Availability
The Google Pixel Watch 4 is widely available across Australia from major retailers and carriers, having launched in late September.
The watch is offered in 2 sizes and 2 connectivity types along with a range of colours.
The Bluetooth/WiFi option requires pairing to your phone, while the 4G LTE enabled models an eSim to connect directly to the internet, offering phone calls and data without your smartphone nearby.
Google Pixel Watch 4 41mm BT/Wi-Fi only model starts at A$579.
Google Pixel Watch 4 45mm BT/Wi-Fi only model starts at A$679.
Google Pixel Watch 4 41mm LTE/BT/Wi-Fi starts at A$749.
Google Pixel Watch 4 45mm LTE/BT/Wi-Fi starts at A$849.
While the default choice may be Google’s Online Store, the Pixel Watch 4 is also available at all major Australian tech retailers including JB Hi-Fi, Office Works, Harvey Norman and more.
Overall
The Google Pixel Watch 4 is a seriously great improvement over previous generations and is the default choice for people with a Google Pixel phone, or many Android smartphones. I could imagine a Samsung phone owner wanting to stay on-brand, however this would work just find with their device as well.
The Pixel Watch 4 addresses my primary pain point of its predecessors, display size, rich notificaitons, battery life and charging simplicity. By significantly boosting endurance while simultaneously integrating a faster chipset and further refining the design, Google has produced a wearable that is no longer just a stylish accessory, but a truly useful piece of technology that’s a great compliment to your smartphone.
Is the watch worth buying? Absolutely. Just make sure you explore the alternative watch bands to really suit your personal preference as the default active band may not.
Of course we all wish the price tag was less, but what you get for the dollars will be justified if you leverag the health information from the device, if you simply leverage it for telling the time and notifications, there’s cheaper options for that.
