A Google Health update began rolling out this weekend as v5.09 and it introduces a big set of features that includes support for the new Health Guardian. It also fixes more bugs and brings additional feature changes you’ve been asking for.
The new update is rolling out now on Android and iOS, but you’ll also need certain Pixel Watch models to take full advantage.
Google Health – Health Guardian for Pixel Watch 3, 4, and 5
At the end of the week, Google began rolling out the new Health Guardian features it announced alongside the Pixel Watch 5. We’ve talked a lot about Health Guardian (here), but to recap, these are blood pressure and insulin resistance trends, as well as sleep breathing quality metrics that are tracked over time. Through Google Health, you’ll receive regular reports on these metrics that give you proactive health information.
Here’s where Google says you’ll find this info and how long you’ll have to wear your watch for:
- Blood pressure trends, that allow you to track blood pressure patterns before they can put strain on your heart, will be available in the Heart section of the Health tab if you’ve worn your watch for 5 or more consecutive days in September.
- Insulin resistance trends will be available in the Metabolic section of the Health tab if you’ve worn your watch for 7 or more days and nights in September.
- Sleep breathing quality metrics, so you can learn how your sleep breathing patterns can affect your daily energy, will be available in the Sleep tab and Respiratory section of the Health tab. You’ll be able to see both daily and monthly trends.
These new Health Guardian metrics are available for free to owners of the Pixel Watch 3, 4, and 5. They’ll arrive for the Fitbit Air in the future, but that you’ll need to be a paying Google Health Premium subscriber.
Google Health 5.09 update changes
Outside of the new Health Guardian support, Google Health is now allowing workouts tracked from other apps and devices to count toward your Cardio Load. That could mean workouts from a Garmin or Apple Watch syncing properly with Google Health and updating a pretty important metric.
Google is also improving custom food creation and is giving you more options for hwo you log your completed activities on the Fitness tab.
Nutrition Improvements
- When creating a custom food, you can now toggle food serving units and meal time more easily.
- We’ve resolved an issue with custom food creation on iOS and fixed a bug where deleted items could still appear in your custom food list.
Activity and Fitness Updates
- You now have more options for how you log your completed activities on the Fitness tab. Tap the “Log activity” button to see them all.
- We’ve fixed an issue where some historical step streaks were missing. We are now restoring this data, and your missing streaks will reappear soon.”
The update should be live on iOS and Android already.
Google Health Apps: Google Play | App Store
