Google Adds Blood Pressure and Insulin Resistance Trends to Pixel Watch 3, 4 and 5 in Free Update

The features were first announced alongside the unveiling of the Pixel Watch 5 in August, but Google did not say at the time when they would reach users. The company has now confirmed the update is going out to devices.

According to Google, the blood pressure and insulin resistance features do not produce instant clinical readings, a capability the watches are not yet advanced enough to support. Instead they track longer-term patterns and generate an assessment once a month. Google says the insulin resistance model was trained on more than a trillion data points collected from over 5 million users, while the blood pressure model was built from billions of minutes of raw heart and movement data.

The sleep breathing quality feature produces a report each morning describing how the wearer's breathing varied overnight. Google says this can help users assess overall sleep quality and identify routines and environments that support better sleep.

Pixel Watch 4 and Pixel Watch 5 owners in selected European markets, including France, Germany, Ireland and the United Kingdom, are also receiving Breathing Emergency Detection. The feature is designed to identify dangerous drops in oxygen saturation and can place a call to emergency services.

Owners of the Fitbit Air will not receive the blood pressure and insulin resistance trends at the same time. TechRadar reported that those users will get the features "later this year" and will need a Google Health Premium subscription to access them. The same subscription is not required for Pixel Watch owners, who receive the features through the free update.

Google's expansion of health monitoring on its wearables puts the Pixel Watch line alongside competing devices that have added sleep and cardiovascular tracking in recent years. The insulin resistance trend tracking is not currently offered on the Apple Watch.