Everyone uses smartwatches differently. There are the people who wear them all day, those who only wear them when they’re outside, those who only use them while working out and even those who only wear them to bed. In 2025, most smartwatches can do it all and satisfy your needs regardless of how you use them. They perform a lot of basic activity and sleep tracking while serving as excellent passive data gatherers. Google’s latest, the Pixel Watch 4, stands strong against rivals like the Apple Watch Series 11 and Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 8, and if you look just at those model numbers, it’s impressive how far Google has come in just four generations.
The Galaxy Watch 8 is probably the Pixel Watch 4’s closest competitor, considering they’re both compatible with Android while the Apple Watch only works with iPhones. Comparing them can feel a bit futile, since it’s most likely you’ll buy the watch that works best with your brand of phone (i.e. Pixel watch for a Pixel phone, Samsung for Samsung). But it’s still worthwhile to see how they fare against each other. If you know what a Samsung watch can do, it helps contextualize what should be considered acceptable on, say, your Pixel or Apple watch.
It bodes well that for the Pixel Watch 4, I’m no longer questioning its fundamental functionality or complaining about its battery life. Rather, I found myself pondering its adaptability and consistency, as well as its strengths over the competition. Unsurprisingly, thanks to its Google and Fitbit heritage, those strengths lie in AI and health tracking. But the Pixel Watch 4 has a surprising advantage that I never saw coming: charging speed.
What’s new on the Pixel Watch 4
Before I get into that though, let’s quickly go over what’s changed on the Pixel Watch 4. It now has a curved display under its domed glass covering, which makes it look even livelier than before. It’s surrounded by bezels that Google says are 16 percent smaller than the last model’s, allowing its screen to be about 10 percent roomier. The display is also brighter by about 50 percent, now going up to 3,000 nits. That’s the same as Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 8, but higher than the Apple Watch Series 11’s 2,000 nits of peak brightness.
Altogether, the physical changes make Pixel Watch 4 look eye-catching and attractive, and I kept getting compliments from people outside my usual tech-savvy circles. Other hardware upgrades include the new dual-frequency GPS, custom haptics engine and speaker, as well as updated processors and a revamped, faster charging system that places the contact points on the watch’s edge instead of the back. Importantly, though I didn’t test it for this review, the Pixel Watch 4 is more repairable, since you can unscrew its case to replace its display and battery if needed.
Like many non-Apple smartwatches, the Pixel Watch 4 runs Google’s Wear OS, but with some new features like a wrist-raise gesture to trigger the Gemini assistant. The company also improved its algorithms for activity- and sleep-tracking, brought its Material 3 Expressive design languages and new watch faces to the OS and overhauled the Fitbit app to center around an AI coach. However, the redesigned Fitbit app wasn’t available for testing during this review, so you won’t see any evaluations of it here.
One more thing I didn’t try on the Pixel Watch 4: Emergency SOS via Satellite. Google’s smartwatch was the first mainstream wearable to be announced to have satellite communications built in, though Apple released the Watch Ultra 3 with similar capabilities shortly after. Because the setup would result in a call or message being sent to emergency services, I decided against testing the satellite feature for this review.
If you’re new to smartwatches or considering your first one, check out our smartwatch buying guide for details on what to expect of a device in 2025. By and large, though, this review won’t cover the basics of what a smartwatch does and what apps or features are typically available.
Sam Rutherford for Engadget
Fast-charging is so good that I no longer worry
I never thought I’d be such a fan of short charge times, but Google’s latest wearable is so fast at refueling that I’ve actually changed my behavior around it. I typically place my smartwatch (usually just the most recent Apple Watch I’ve tested) on my kitchen island so that I see it when I grab my pre-bedtime cup of water and remember to put it on the charger overnight.
With the Pixel Watch 4, I’ve started to just drop it on the charger when I wake up, and by the time I’m done brushing my teeth, washing my face and changing into my gym clothes, it’ll have plenty of power for about half a day. I can’t say the same for the Apple Watch, though the Series 11 has respectable charging speeds that allow me to get enough for a morning walk and a workout after about 10 minutes of being plugged in.
For the actual numbers, you can read my colleague Sam Rutherford’s story where he meticulously charted the charge time of the larger 45mm model of the Pixel Watch 4 he’s been using. It jives with my experience, where, after just six minutes, my device went from 37 percent to 62 percent.
I was also impressed when I saw an alert on the watch’s face that told me the charger wasn’t actually plugged into an outlet. I’ve been burned in the past when I placed other smartwatches on their charging pucks, only to come back an hour later and realize it hadn’t actually been charging because I didn’t connect the cable to a socket. This feature felt like a particularly thoughtful touch on Google’s part.
The Pixel Watch 4’s battery life
With such quick recharging, it can feel like a long-lasting battery isn’t as important. But the Pixel Watch 4 still manages to deliver respectable runtimes.
In general, I preferred to let the Pixel Watch 4 get a full charge, because I noticed its battery doesn’t get me through a whole day after just a few minutes on the dock. But when I took it off the charger at 3:35PM one Friday afternoon, it managed to last all through Saturday night, going from 100 percent to 22 percent by 9PM the next day. That’s after a full day of passive activity tracking, where the watch noted that I had burned about 3,000 calories, hiked 6.73 miles and climbed the equivalent of 128 floors.
The Pixel Watch 4 typically lasts about as long as the Apple Watch Series 11. Both devices clock about a day and a half, depending on how frequently I use features like Gemini or the remote control view for the phone’s camera. That runtime also seems similar to the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8, which my colleague Amy Skorheim reviewed.
Considering Google rates the 41mm version of the Watch 4 to last about 30 hours on a charge, the experience I had mostly surpasses that estimate. Of course, battery performance usually deteriorates over time, so my brand new review unit will likely get a little less long-lasting after a while.
Fitbit / Engadget
Sleep tracking: A tale of insomnia and naps
I wouldn’t usually dwell on a feature that has been around for generations of a device, but Google did update its sleep-tracking algorithms for the Pixel Watch 4, calling it “our most accurate sleep-tracking.” Plus, as Apple only just introduced Sleep Score on the Series 11, I thought it was a good opportunity to compare the two.
Both companies thoughtfully limit the brightness of their watches’ displays when you’re in bed, and tuned their software in response to your usual bedtimes so you won’t be awoken by endless notifications while sleeping. They all deliver sleep scores and readouts of the zones you cycled through while you rested, too, to help you get better insight on your slumber.
While I prefer Apple’s presentation of the sleep score in a ring with three segments to indicate areas of potential improvement, I find Google’s charts more readable and specific data easier to find. I’m not going to spend too much time complaining about an app’s layout, though, since it largely has to do with getting used to the way a company organizes its info. What’s more important is how their devices count your sleep, and whether they do so accurately.
In anticipation of a long day that would start at about 4:45AM, I went to bed at about 10PM, only to wake up at 1:57AM, unable to fall back asleep. I counted sheep, told myself to fall asleep, got angry at myself for not being able to sleep and peeked at my phone, which showed me that it had been an hour since I woke up. I finally drifted off after some time, waking up when the Pixel Watch 4 dragged me out of a dream by buzzing relentlessly on my wrist. In my half-awake state, I actually thought the vibration was part of the dream and almost went back to sleep, until I remembered it was the silent alarm I had set for 4:45AM.
Color me shocked when I saw my sleep score was 81 — deemed “Good” by the Pixel Watch 4 due in part to my accumulating six hours and 24 minutes of rest. I immediately dug into the sleep chart to see if my hour awake had been misattributed to sleep. It had been. The device did pick up many moments of restlessness, saying that movement was detected during 9 percent of my sleep. But it couldn’t tell that despite my lying fairly still, I had been, sadly, wide awake.
I can’t penalize Google or Fitbit too heavily for that. Most sleep trackers can’t tell between periods of sleep and complete stillness either. Google said lying awake but very still in bed before you sleep can sometimes be tracked as sleep, and that it’s a known limitation of the algorithm that it’s working on improving for future iterations.
Another area for improvement: napping. On the way home to New York from Lake Placid, I passed out for about an hour at 9PM. Since that was late enough to count as bedtime for some people, I hoped that the Apple Watch and Pixel Watch would both take those minutes into consideration. But neither did.
With the Pixel Watch 4, I found out later that naps during the day would be counted, they just had to last at least two hours. Two-hour naps? In this economy?? I don’t know who else has the time but a quick hourlong lie-down is big for me.
Meanwhile, the Apple Watch was reported to be able to track naps in a watchOS 11 beta, but I’m still waiting on official word and details about that.
Like I said at the start of this review, sleep-tracking isn’t a major reason I use smartwatches. For those, like Sam, who do, the Pixel Watch 4 will be quite satisfying. Sam noted that the device was mostly accurate in his experience, and detected when he had to get up to feed his baby at night. Plus, it’s light and comfortable enough to wear to bed (when paired with the right strap), and its battery will last all night. Add the fast charging we’ve already raved about and it seems like there’s almost no reason to not have the Pixel Watch 4 on your wrist at all times.
A word on alarms, timers and stopwatches
I also like that on the Pixel Watch, I was able to set an alarm to wake me with just vibration and no sound, so I could get up earlier than my partner before we left for our five-hour drive to Lake Placid. I could not find this on the Apple Watch — though I did have the option to allow the alarm to break through silent mode. It’s just another way the two companies differ, and I imagine they’ll both copy each other and add the respective missing features soon enough.
Google / Apple / Engadget
One thing I do wish Apple would change: the icons for the Stopwatch, Timer and Alarm apps on watchOS. All three of them are represented by orange circles in the app drawer, with slightly different versions of circles with clock hands in them. They’re not labeled, either, so if you’re not in the List view you’ll have to guess which of these three orange orbs is the time-related app you want, and go back and forth until you find the right one.
Google is only slightly better at this, since it uses an hourglass to represent the Timer and the Alarm and Stopwatch icons are a bit more distinct from each other. Plus, Alarm sits at the top of the Pixel Watch’s drawer, whereas the Stopwatch and Timer are closer together near the bottom. They’re clearly organized alphabetically, since other options near the top are Contacts, Calendar and Camera while Recorder, Settings and Spotify are at the end with Stopwatch and Timer.
Meanwhile, all of Apple’s first-party apps are at the top of the watchOS app drawer and if you throw in the other orange circle that is the World Clock, you’ll have four cheesy orbs sitting in close proximity to each other like Ritz crackers.
Gestures and Gemini — convenience with some caveats
Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 8 was the first smartwatch to have Google’s Gemini onboard, but when the Pixel Watch 4 launched, it brought the “raise to talk to Gemini” feature with it. This allows for convenient hands-free communication with the AI, so long as you have an internet connection, anyway.
When I left my Pixel 10 Pro in a locker and went for a quick riverside walk, I wasn’t able to get the assistant to set a timer so I knew when to start heading back. This isn’t just about the wrist-raising gesture — Gemini simply won’t work on the Pixel Watch 4 if it’s not online, whether that be via a tethered phone or its own cellular connection. In contrast, while I did have to long-press the Apple Watch’s knob or say “Hey Siri,” I was at least able to get it to set that alarm, even when I put it (and the iPhone it was linked to) on Airplane mode.
This isn’t a dealbreaker, but it’s frustrating if you don’t have an LTE version of the watch and decide to leave your phone at home. Sure, you can touch the screen and use the app to set that timer, but I don’t want to have to stop, lift up my wrist and select the number of minutes my countdown should run.
Cherlynn Low for Engadget
There are a few caveats to note when specifically talking about the wrist-raise gestures, too. For one, you’ll have to make sure the Always On Display is enabled, since the system relies on the screen being on to detect changes in movement and state. You’ll also have to be fairly deliberate with the gesture, bringing your wrist to your mouth from about waist-level.
For the most part the Pixel Watch 4 responded as expected, with the onscreen indicator telling me Gemini was listening when I brought my hand to my mouth. But every now and then, especially when I was sitting down, it would fail to react. There are few situations more embarrassing than sitting in a cafe, repeatedly jerking your wrist up to your face while holding a phone up to get a video of the feature working. I could only hope the other people at the coffee shop where I was writing this review didn’t think I was doing something worse.
Sometimes, the little glowing animation would appear to show that my action was successful, but if I even moved my wrist slightly after that, it would disappear. Also, if you lift your wrist from any screen other than the home page, you won’t see the indicator. But if you confidently speak your request into the ether anyway, you’ll realize Gemini was actually awoken by your gesture.
With the apps drawer open, I lifted my wrist and asked what the weather was like, and promptly got a response. There was also a light vibration to let me know the watch had heard me. When I raised my hand again and asked “how about tomorrow,” Gemini was quick to tell me it would be rainy in my area. I was impressed by the speedy responses and the fact that I could keep bringing my hand up to my mouth to ask follow-up questions or interrupt an overly wordy response, but I do have to acknowledge that there is a certain finesse that is required to get the gesture right each time.
I was a little perturbed that the action needs to be somewhat deliberate, right up until the one time it accidentally triggered when I flipped my wrist during a call. Out of nowhere, the assistant was responding to my conversation with my therapist. This only happened once during my 10 or so days with the Pixel Watch 4, so the rate of false positives is fairly low. The jerkiness of raise-to-talk to Gemini is a tradeoff I’m willing to make in exchange for fewer accidental triggers.
Plus, Google has said this is an initial foray into gesture-based interaction with the Pixel Watch, and it appears to continue to tweak its algorithms for greater accuracy and sensitivity. The Watch 4 may not currently support the double tap and wrist flick gestures that Apple does (or Samsung’s pinch-based actions). But I’ve been in the industry long enough to remember when Android Wear watches allowed you to flip your wrist to scroll through long notifications. It seems Wear OS still supports that, along with a limited set of gesture-based navigation actions. I was able to dismiss notifications and return to the home page by rotating my wrist on the Pixel Watch 4 thanks to the existing “ungaze” gesture that’s designed to close an alerting notification.
Cherlynn Low for Engadget
Auto workout detection is different, but still here
Over the years, Google has gone back and forth on its auto-workout-detection system. With the original Pixel Watch, the device didn’t bother to tell you if it noticed you had gone on a walk. You’d have to go into the Fitbit app a few hours later to see that session. That changed with the Pixel Watch 2, which brought reminders to start a workout for seven types of activities including running, walking, rowing and outdoor biking. The Watch 3 improved upon that by being quick on the uptake, suggesting I had been active as soon as I had been moving for 10 minutes.
On the Watch 4, Google changed its approach (again). At first, it no longer appeared to automatically track my daily 20-minute walks to and from my gym. But because I remembered my experience with the original model, I went to the Fitbit app on my phone and was relieved to see a suggested workout logged there.
Subsequently, I discovered that the Watch 4 would prompt me to confirm detected periods of activity, but only 30 minutes after I was done. The idea is that the prompt to record a walk or impromptu run might interrupt your flow, and while I can understand that rationale, I wish there was an option for me to just set it how I prefer it.
The good news is that in my time with the Pixel Watch 4, I never felt shortchanged. As long as they lasted at least 15 minutes, pretty much all my extended walks were accurately logged (minus the location information, which makes sense from a privacy perspective). I also wore a Galaxy Ring during my review, since in my experience that’s the most accurate at tracking every little walk I take, and the two devices usually matched up. The Apple Watch, meanwhile, barely ever registered any of my walks, and I always needed to remember to manually start an Outdoor Walk workout.
With its new dual-frequency GPS, the Pixel Watch 4 is better at mapping out my routes than its predecessors, especially in building-dense cities like the one I live in. I never noticed a significant delay in the watch latching onto a signal, even as I walked out of a small tunnel into the skyscraper-rich Newport area of New Jersey.
Fitbit / Engadget
Stress-detection, messaging and more
Each of this year’s new smartwatches has some unique features. Samsung has its antioxidant index test, Apple has hypertension notifications and Google has had loss of pulse detection and body response alerts. That latter basically notices changes in your electrodermal activity and prompts you to note if you’re feeling particularly stressed or excited. It’s been around since the Pixel Watch 2, and isn’t enabled on the fourth-generation device by default so you won’t have to worry about it pinging you too much. I had it activated and was buzzed several times most days to think about my mood, and each evening I’d have a nice log of how many times I was agitated.
There are quite a few new features on the Pixel Watch 4 that I won’t spend too much time evaluating. The real-time streaming of your bike workout stats to your connected phone is one example. Like Apple’s version of this feature, it works and makes it easy to see your stats safely on a mounted handset during your ride.
Google also introduced something called “notification cooldown” which minimizes interruptions after several of them come through in rapid succession. If your group chat is getting particularly fiery, for example, this can help reduce the amount of vibrations and alerts being sent to your wrist after some time. I made my friend Julian Chokkattu at Wired test this out with me and we sent each other single-word messages nonstop for minutes at a time and both of us found notification cooldown kicked in after a few alerts.
Speaking of, the Pixel Watch 4 also features AI-generated suggested replies to messages that support the Wear OS quick reply protocol. Google said this is a first-of-its-kind small language model designed for use on a watch. Because it’s on-device, it won’t require an internet connection to work, though if you’re receiving messages I have to imagine you’re at least connected to cellular. When it did work, it was nice to see the smart reply suggestions instead of the generic canned ones before. But most of the apps I use, like Telegram and Instagram messages, don’t support quick reply. Google also says smart replies won’t work on Workspace or select WhatsApp messaging.
The interface you’re most likely to interact with on any smartwatch is your main watch face, and in general the new watch faces on the Pixel Watch 4 are rich with information and shortcuts. While I wish Google would move away from the cartoonish, rounded fonts in favor of something cleaner and sharper, I like that all its layouts offer plenty of customization options with lots of room for convenient complications. I chose to put my most important stats on my home screen, as well as a shortcut to launch Spotify. I do wish Google would make nicer faces like Apple’s Photos one that has a dynamic clock to better highlight your pictures, instead of the current option on the Pixel Watch that sticks the text in the bottom and calls it a day.
Cherlynn Low for Engadget
Wrap-up
When I reviewed the Pixel Watch 3, it felt like the first time Google’s smartwatch was on par with the likes of Apple’s and Samsung’s offerings. With the Pixel Watch 4, not only is Google closing the gap even further than it did last year, but it’s also bringing unique tools you won’t find elsewhere. This year’s model differentiates itself with a repairable design, super fast charging and, though it’s no longer the only one on the market to offer this, satellite communications. The first two alone feel like game changers, and even with its limitations, raising your wrist to talk to Gemini is a convenient gesture when it works.
Beyond the new features sit the comprehensive suite of health-related tools that make the Pixel Watch 4 a formidable smartwatch and excellent companion for your smartphone. Wear OS and Material 3 Expressive make for a vibrant, easy-to-navigate interface for a system that can do almost anything your phone can, just on a smaller screen.
At $350, the Pixel Watch 4 is $20 more than the Galaxy Watch 8 (and $50 less than the Apple Watch Series 11). It’s hard to justify that exact price difference and tell you which is a worthier purchase. My recommendation remains the same as ever: Get the watch that’s from the same company as your phone. It’ll be better for you.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/pixel-watch-4-review-a-well-rounded-smartwatch-with-a-surprising-advantage-170059851.html?src=rss