Google has announced Health Guardian, a suite of health and safety features coming soon to the Google Health app for qualified Pixel Watches and Fitbit Air. The features track subtle physiological changes in the background 24/7 and provide monthly summaries highlighting noteworthy shifts, along with notifications when a feature detects a change that requires attention.
Google Health Coach will help users understand the information by translating the data into insights and providing guidance on practical lifestyle changes.
Health Guardian features
Health Guardian includes four features:
- Insulin Resistance Trends: Analyzes multi-week physiological data to track changes in metabolic health without requiring a blood sample. Google says roughly 40% of adults are unaware of changes in their insulin resistance. The feature can help users identify fluctuations and make changes to nutrition, sleep, and movement.
- Blood Pressure Trends: Uses pulse and motion patterns collected throughout the month to estimate blood pressure trends without a cuff or manual calibration. Google says six in 10 people do not realize when their blood pressure has shifted higher. Persistent patterns can affect heart and kidney health, and users can confirm trends with a home blood pressure monitor or consult a healthcare professional.
- Sleep Breathing Quality Trends: Tracks breathing changes during sleep and shows each morning how much of the user’s sleep was spent in optimal breathing. A monthly assessment helps identify longer-term patterns and can inform changes to the sleep environment and daily habits or discussions with a healthcare professional.
- Breathing Emergency Detection: An opt-in Pixel Watch feature for select European countries that detects dangerously low blood oxygen levels. Breathing-related emergencies such as severe pneumonia, accidental drug overdose, or choking can cause a persistent, critical drop in oxygen saturation. If the wearer becomes unresponsive, the feature can automatically call emergency services and, where applicable, emergency contacts.
AI and research
Google developed the AI models behind Health Guardian using sensor data from millions of opted-in users across billions of minutes of everyday life. The models learn patterns in human biology and can account for missing or incomplete sensor data.
Every Health Guardian feature has undergone clinical validation using gold-standard ground-truth devices and measurement protocols, with feedback from the scientific community.
The underlying models include:
- Insulin Resistance Trends: Uses a sensor foundational model pretrained on over one trillion minutes of data from 5 million opted-in users. Its accuracy was validated against standard clinical blood tests, with an article on the research published in Nature.
- Blood Pressure Trends: Uses WavesFM, a foundation model trained on billions of minutes of raw heart and movement data. Google says the data was validated across a diverse range of people and through a Fitbit Hypertension Labs study.
Health summaries and Google Health Coach
Health Guardian information will be provided through monthly summaries in the Google Health app, highlighting noteworthy changes. Users can also receive timely notifications when a feature detects something that requires attention.
Google Health Coach will help users understand the information and provide guidance on practical lifestyle changes related to their health and wellness.
Availability
Health Guardian features will be coming soon to the Google Health app for qualified Pixel Watches and Fitbit Air.
- Qualified Pixel Watches and Fitbit Air: Health Guardian features
- Pixel Watch in select European countries: Breathing Emergency Detection