The Google Pixel Watch 4 is mesmerizing, buttery smooth, and smarter than ever

I’ve been reviewing smartwatches for years now, and I have specific requirements for what I consider a good smartwatch that’s part of an ecosystem. It needs to be a solid performer for fitness. It must handle notifications well by allowing me to respond from the watch with more than just canned messages (LTE or 5G connectivity is a bonus). It also needs to track my health metrics with consistency and relative accuracy. Most importantly, though, it needs to work seamlessly in tandem with my phone.

The Pixel Watch 4, the latest wearable from Google, does all of that and more, while looking rather fetching in the process, thanks to Material 3 Expressive. While its looks are great, its battery life often falls short of what I’d like, and reading the display can be difficult under sunny southern California’s sunny sky, especially on beach days.

The new Pixel Watch 4 tackles most of my smartwatch pain points, and does so impressively. I’m just a little more than two weeks into testing, but so far, the Pixel Watch 4 is shaping up to be an easy smartwatch to recommend, especially if you’re a Pixel owner.

Credit: Google

4.5/5

Brand

Google

Heart Rate Monitor

Yes

Notification Support

Yes

Operating System

Wear OS 6.0

The Pixel Watch 4 makes some solid leaps in features from last year, including a user-replaceable display and battery. With a gorgeous, super-bright Actua 360 display that shows off engaging Material 3 Expressive graphics, this is easily the best smartwatch for Pixel owners.

Pros & Cons

• Charging speed
• Powerful haptics
• Improved battery life
• Large, info-dense display
• Very smart, Smart Replies

• Gemini still needs some time to mature
• Workout mode music player integration

Price, availability, and specs

The Pixel Watch 4’s pre-orders launched in August 2025, and it hits store shelves on October 9, 2025. The 45mm Pixel Watch 4 is available from the Google Store and at most physical electronics retailers, starting at $400 for the Wi-Fi model and $500 for the LTE model. It’s available with a matte black body with a silicone obsidian band, a polished silver body with a porcelain band, and a satin moonstone body with a moonstone band.

What I like about the Pixel Watch 4

That Actua 360 Domed display is impressive

Unboxing the new 45mm Obsidian Wi-Fi Pixel Watch 4, I immediately forgot that the Pixel Watch 3’s screen is nearly the same. The refinement in the curvature with 2025’s Actua 360 display, along with the smaller bezels and a 10% increase in screen real estate, is instantly noticeable, making it appear larger than its predecessor. This refinement is a welcome addition during sleep, as the watch body now has a lower profile, making it feel less obtrusive when you’re visiting the Sandman. The improved haptic engine has been excellent, waking me with a silent, vibrating alarm every morning. I use that because I get up much earlier than my wife, and I want to disturb her as little as possible.

Refinement is the word that best describes the Pixel Watch 4 this year, and that’s not a bad thing. Especially if you’re the current owner of a Pixel Watch 2 or older, in which case, those refinements become a leap in the user experience.

The rotating crown feels the same as last year, but the side button has been shifted from a jellybean-shaped design to a longer, narrower, TicTac-like button that feels like it protrudes a bit more. It feels easier to click on than the Pixel Watch 3’s implementation.

Back to the benefits of the display for a moment. Material 3 Expressive and it’s ability to change theme colors to match your whims is absolutely gorgeous. With the Snapdragon W5 Gen 2 chip and Cortex-M55 co-processor, animations morph and scroll with buttery smoothness. On the Pixel Watch 3, the Concentric watch face was one of my favorites for its smooth, engaging animation.

Of the eight new watch faces on the Pixel Watch 4, my current favorite is Corsa (check it out in the gallery below). It’s an analog watch face that allows you to add the seconds as a rotating, animating dial around the edges. It features the ability to add up to six complications, in addition to a digital time and a date complication. That means eight bits of glanceable info in total. The Corsa watch face is mesmerizing and hypnotic.

The daily functions of the watch and its improvements are also noteworthy. The Pixel Watch 4 is brighter than the Pixel Watch 3 by 50%, making the new 3,000 nit display very readable under direct sunlight. The many radios and sensors inside the watch perform quite well. Step counting landed well within an acceptable margin of error when I tested it during my urban trek through Downtown Los Angeles, where I also tested the new dual-band GPS in the shadow of high-rises and skyscrapers.

After 2,470 clicks of my mechanical tally counter, the Pixel Watch 4’s step count was off that mark by only 13 steps. GPS tracking and logging didn’t register any big deviations from the path I walked, despite other watches having challenges with the tall buildings hindering GPS during past testing.

Validating the heart rate monitoring, it was within a beat of one of the best, my Polar H10 chest-worn heart rate monitor. During interval training, the watch responded quickly to rapid increases in heart rate and predictably during periods of rest. More on this as I test more vigorously once Fitbit updates its app with all of the features announced at Google’s event.

Google says that the sleep tracking is more accurate than ever. While I don’t have a way to test the accuracy of sleep stage logging against any empirical standard for sleep tracking, I can say that the watch has accurately logged my sleep and wake times.

I’m still working through more battery testing, but Google’s claims are holding up. I’m getting a little more than 42 hours of use. That’s with every feature activated, an hour of GPS tracking, an hour of offline Spotify music streaming to the Google Pixel Buds 2a, and an hour or more of workout tracking. On weekdays, I have to charge it while getting ready for bed, 37 hours after taking it off the charger, with roughly 20% battery left. You can expect to see a loss of only six to eight percent of your battery life while sleeping. As I continue to test battery use, I plan to deactivate the new Gemini “Raise to talk” feature to see how dramatically it reduces battery consumption.

Yes, there’s a new charger. No, your old charger(s) won’t work with it. The gains in charging speed may make you feel a bit less annoyed about buying new backup chargers again. 15 minutes on the new charger gets me to about a 48% charge. I’m getting to a full charge in around an hour, but the watch can reach roughly 80% after 30 minutes on the charger.

Something about this watch that I love, in theory, is that for the first time on a Pixel Watch, the battery and display are user-serviceable. Google is selling replacements for those components with iFixit, and it only requires a Torx screwdriver that you can purchase at just about any hardware supply store, and many electronics stores or electronics departments. With this version of the watch starting at $400, that’s a very welcome addition.

There’s a longer discussion to be had around Gemini, but the Pixel Watch 4’s on-device AI is impressive. New, smarter Smart Replies are contextual and personalized. In the screenshots above, you can see how the watch responded to the text I sent myself from a different phone number.

What I didn’t like about the 45mm Pixel Watch 4

It’s a short list

There isn’t much to dislike about the Pixel Watch 4 experience, particularly in terms of hardware and fitness tracking. I’ll dive into the Fitbit app portion of the smartwatch at a later time, as the new features and changes announced at the launch event haven’t launched yet.

The Gemini “Raise to wake” feature is a bit tricky. When you raise your wrist, a small area of the bottom of the watch glows. If you have a timer or app full screen, sometimes that glow doesn’t show. I’ve found that it’s still listening, you just don’t get that visual cue every time. Please, Google, let us set a default music player for the workout app. You still need to exit the workout app or use a voice command to start a playlist from a different app, then return to the workout app, where you can then control the media playback.

I’ll say it again this year, I want a rugged 45mm, or 47mm Pixel Watch. This beautiful domed display makes me want one even more. The lack of a Sapphire crystal option on the Pixel Watch 4’s beautiful Actua 360 display will keep the fear of marring its beauty in the back of my mind every time I’m at the range or hiking the backcountry.

Should you buy the Google Pixel Watch 4?

A no-brainer for those in the Google ecosystem

The Pixel Watch 4 boasts one of the most striking displays on the market, and Material 3 Expressive complements it perfectly, bringing it to life. If you own an Android phone, this is an everyday watch that is hard to beat. That goes triple if you own a Pixel phone because of how seamlessly the 45mm Pixel Watch 4 fits into Google’s ecosystem. If you’re coming from the original Pixel Watch or the second-generation model, it’s still upgrade-worthy. If you have last year’s model, hold onto it for a while longer.

With an IP68 durability rating, water resistance to 5ATM, and the ability to replace the battery and display, the Pixel Watch 4 should provide years of logged sleep, tracked steps, and hearty haptic vibrations, all while looking solid in the gym or at a black-tie affair.

Credit: Google

Brand

Google

Heart Rate Monitor

Yes

Notification Support

Yes

Operating System

Wear OS 6.0

Water Rating

IP68

Case size

41mm, 45mm