Google’s wearables just got a major health upgrade: insulin resistance tracking. But let’s be clear, this is not a tool for direct blood glucose measurement or non-stop sugar readings. Instead, the new feature leans on AI and multiple onboard sensors to spot shifts in your body’s signals—little red flags that your insulin resistance might be changing.
Google introduces insulin resistance tracking
This update lands inside Google’s Health Guardian suite, which is all about helping you notice small changes in your health before they become big problems. Besides insulin resistance, Health Guardian will keep tabs on blood pressure trends and how your breathing looks at night.
So, how does this work?
The insulin resistance feature pulls data from built-in sensors—things like the accelerometer, barometer, heart-rate monitor, and skin-temperature sensor—and feeds it through Google's AI models. The goal is to detect patterns that reveal how your body handles energy from food.
It does not measure blood sugar
But, and this is important, the system isn’t meant to replace a glucose monitor. You will not see blood-sugar readings or get a diabetes diagnosis from it. What you will get: alerts when the device spots signals that your insulin resistance has changed, so you can tweak your lifestyle or check in with your doctor.
Pixel Watch 5 and Fitbit Air get the feature first
Google developed this tool using data from more than 100,000 real people, analysing how things like heart rate or skin temperature connect to insulin resistance shifts. And if you’re already using a continuous glucose monitor, you can still hook it up with Google Health Connect.
For now, Google’s launching Health Guardian on just the Pixel Watch 5 and Fitbit Air. More devices are in the pipeline. The Pixel Watch 5 also picks up a few extra tricks—think sharper GPS, speedier performance, bigger memory, and new step-by-step strength training workouts coming later.
Google is not alone in exploring blood-sugar tracking
If you want help making sense of all this health data, Google’s AI Health Coach is also on hand to break it down and offer personalised insights. Some of the fancier advice, though, sits behind a paywall inside the Google Health app.
Google is not the only player racing toward deeper metabolic tracking. Whoop’s working on its own blood-sugar integration, Oura’s teamed up with Dexcom to connect wearables and traditional glucose monitors, and Apple is rumoured to be developing tools for people with prediabetes.
For now, Google’s focus is not on diagnosing or treating – you are getting a smart early warning system, not a medical device. Still, the company’s pretty bullish: with better sensors and smarter AI, wearables could soon track glucose a lot more closely.
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