Confession: While I love trying out new fitness trackers, I don’t like the process of getting used to new fitness trackers. Therefore, ones that are intuitive to use right out of the box are huge for me.
I used the Google Pixel Watch with the Google Pixel 7 Pro phone and found the connection to be seamless (the Pixel Watch only works with Google Pixel and Android phones). The watch syncs with your Google contacts, apps, and calendar on your phone, making it easy to communicate between the two. My watch synced immediately with the phone and setup was painless.
Once out of the box, I found the Google Pixel Watch to be simple to use: you use swipes and taps on the touchscreen to maneuver the menus, along with the two physical buttons (the bezel , which also allows you to scroll, and a discreet button above). Swipe left or right and you see your main tiles, which include workout selection, daily steps, heart rate, sleep, weather, and calendar events. You can customize these tiles to your liking. Swipe down and you get watch settings, and swipe up to scroll through your texts, emails, calls or other app notifications.
I’m a big fan of the physical buttons on smartwatches, and I think those on the Pixel Watch are particularly useful. Tap the bezel once and you get a list of all your apps. Double-tap it and you’ll open your Google Wallet, which lets you make payments without a phone. As for the small button, a single press gives you a list of your most recent apps, while a long press brings up Google Assistant, which is voice-activated and very helpful in immediately getting you exactly where you need to go. want to go. For example, when I told him to text my partner, he not only brought up his contact screen, but walked me through creating and sending a text message enabled by the voice.
Applications
You need two apps to use Google Pixel Watch: the Watch app and the Fitbit app. Think of the Watch app as the foundation – I used it when setting it up and haven’t really bothered with it since. This is where you choose your watch face, the tiles that will show on your watch screen, notification options, and apps to download. The Fitbit app is what I use daily: it’s where you get all your health metrics, such as steps, heart rate, and sleep tracking. This is also where you get all the information about your workouts.
Exercise Options
Your Google Pixel Watch will track up to 40 different types of workouts, from running to elliptical to CrossFit to weightlifting. At first, you’ll have to swipe through the entire list to find the one you want to track, but if you usually default to the same types of workouts, you’re in luck: the workouts home screen keeps your three most recently used icons front and center for easy access.
I’m a runner, so how a fitness tracker measures running is important to me. I feel like the Pixel Watch was adequate on that front, but it could have been better. On the plus side, the running screen shows four metrics on the main screen, which you can customize, so you can see all the majors at a glance. For me, it’s elapsed time, distance, heart rate, and pace.
