Pixel Watch gets Health Guardian free while Fitbit Air puts it behind Premium

Google’s Health Guardian features are finally going live, and there is a slightly surprising split between Pixel Watch and Fitbit Air. Pixel Watch owners get the main new features for free, while Fitbit Air users will need Google Health Premium for two of them.

Pixel Watch gets the features for free

Google announced today that Health Guardian is rolling out in the Google Health app. Pixel Watch 3, Pixel Watch 4 and Pixel Watch 5 owners can begin setting up Blood Pressure Trends, Insulin Resistance Trends and Sleep Breathing Quality this week.

The first proper trend reports will not appear immediately. Google says they should begin arriving in early October, once there is enough data to work with.

Blood Pressure Trends requires at least five consecutive days of data during a week, while Insulin Resistance Trends needs at least seven days of data. The reports are then delivered at the beginning of each month. So these are not daily or real-time measurements.

We already had a pretty good idea the rollout was close. Last week, our Google Health APK teardown found Blood Pressure Trends, Insulin Resistance Trends and Sleep Breathing Quality wired into the app, complete with onboarding screens and places for the resulting data.

Fitbit Air gets a different deal

The odd part is Fitbit Air.

Google says Fitbit Air users will get Blood Pressure Trends and Insulin Resistance Trends later this year, but only with a Google Health Premium subscription. There is no equivalent subscription requirement attached to those features on Pixel Watch 3, 4 or 5.

Google Health Premium costs $9.99 per month or $99 per year, although Fitbit Air buyers receive three months with the device. It is also included with Google AI Pro and Ultra subscriptions, something we covered when Google bundled Health Premium into its AI plans.

That softens the subscription issue for anyone already paying for Google’s AI services. But for everyone else, there is now a fairly clear distinction between what the $99 Fitbit Air gets for free and what Pixel Watch owners receive.