At the launch of the Pixel Watch 5, Google announced Health Guardian, a new suite of tools to keep an eye on your health. It can see trends on your blood pressure, breathing and, most interestingly, insulin resistance. Cuffless blood pressure monitoring is increasingly common, but Google's offering aggregates pulse and motion patterns, crunching them in a proprietary algorithm, then giving a single data point on the first day of each month. The company is also tackling "breathing-related emergencies" that cause a critical drop in oxygen saturation, using AI to monitor heart rate, motion and altitude data.

Most interestingly, Google claims Health Guardian can track insulin resistance from your wrist by passively monitoring heart rhythm, sleep quality and activity through an AI model. Users get a monthly score alongside nudges and tips. This noninvasive blood sugar monitoring has been the holy grail for wearables. In 2017, Apple was reported to be working on it; in 2023, rumors suggested headway but not enough for a product. Google's WEAR-ME study with Quest Diagnostics cross-checked wearable data with in-person blood tests, and in March 2026 published a paper in Nature showing the possibility of identifying insulin resistance early.

Blood Pressure and Insulin Trends will be available on Pixel Watch 3, 4 and 5, and Fitbit Air this fall. Breathing detection works on Pixel Watch 4 and 5 now in several European countries, but hasn't been cleared by the FDA yet. Google offers disclaimers that features are not a substitute for diagnostic tools.