best pixel weather alternative

Since the introduction of the Pixel 9 series in 2024, Google’s Pixel Weather app has been my favorite weather application. I love its simplistic and pixel-y UI, customizable home screen, excellent pollen tracker, and more. Pixel Weather checks almost every box for what I want in a weather app.

However, lately, I’ve been using another app instead. I came across Gradiant Weather while scrolling through threads about a week ago and almost immediately after downloading it, I knew I had found something special.

Pixel Weather is still great, but after use gradually weatherI think it could be even better.

Let’s get the important (and slightly boring) part out of the way first: weather accuracy. From my experience using gradient weather in southwest michigan, i’m really happy with its forecasts.

Instead of using a single source for its weather information, gradient weather relies on a few different sources (including public weather stations, which you can see on a weather map) and funnels that information into its “built-in accuracy engine,” which creates the most accurate forecasts possible. So far, it seems to be working.

In addition to providing data that I can trust, I think that Gradient Weather does a better job of visualizing the weather than Pixel Weather.

For example, in the screenshot above, Gradient Weather shows an hourly forecast with a nice bar graph that shows rising temperatures throughout the day. The number of pixel weather with hourly forecast is also increasing, but without any visual elements.

I also really like how Gradiant Weather presents weather alerts (like weather monitors and warnings). Not only do the alerts change colors depending on what they’re for, but the gradient also shows you the full alert in the app instead of sending it to your browser to read it like Pixel Weather.

There are other little touches like this in Gradiant Weather’s weather data, too. The sunrise/sunset widget is better than Pixel Weather’s, showing how many hours and minutes of daylight are left, along with a more detailed graph of the sun’s path. Seeing the current and upcoming moon phase is a wonderful touch, as is the working compass on the wind widget. Yes, these are small details, but I really appreciate them.

Then there is the gradient weather map, which is excess More powerful than Pixel Weather. Instead of just showing precipitation on the map, gradients also include filters for temperature, cloud cover, wind speed, and pressure. And, similar to how you can report road conditions in Google Maps, gradient weather lets users report real-time weather conditions in their area – including not only conditions like sunshine and clouds, but also rainbows and sunsets.

One thing that Gradient Weather does better than Pixel Weather is notifications. Google’s Weather app can send general weather forecast notifications, rainfall notifications, and… that’s about it.

Gradient Weather, on the other hand, has ridiculously customizable notifications for every type of weather condition you could ask for. You can receive a notification about tomorrow’s weather every evening, turn on frost warning notifications for the fall/winter months, and even get warnings of imminent rain 10, 15, or 20 minutes before it’s expected to start raining. There’s a lot to dig into here, and it really puts Pixel Weather to shame.

Finally, in terms of customization, gradient weather is simply a joy. You can change the app theme to match the current weather conditions, your phone’s system accent color, or create a completely custom theme. You can customize the dark theme, change the font style, and completely rearrange the home screen as you wish. There are even custom app icons And A customizable widget (which is many times better than any other third-party weather app widget I’ve seen so far).

When comparing Gradient Weather with Pixel Weather, Google’s app still has some major advantages.

As it currently stands, Gradian Weather doesn’t have an equivalent to Pixel Weather’s pollen tracker. There is a “Pollen Alert” notification you can enable, but it is not currently supported in my area. For someone with seasonal allergies (and who lives with someone with even worse allergies), this is a bummer.

You’ll also need to pay for a “Premium” subscription to access all of Gradient Weather’s features – namely, full notification/alert support, all theme and layout tools, and widget customization. This will set you back $22/year, $3.50/month, or $33 for lifetime access. I appreciate the option of a one-time payment, and I’m happy to support a small development team, but it’s less ideal when Pixel Weather is 100% free to use.

However, there’s everything that gradient weather gets right – and the fact that you can use it Any Android phones, not just Pixels – I think it’s fair to say this is my new favorite weather app on Android. Is it perfect? No, but considering it was just released a week ago and it’s already so good, I can’t wait to see where it goes next.

I still love pixel weather, but for now, gradients have my heart.