The best Pixel Weather alternative

Ever since it debuted on the Pixel 9 series in 2024, Google’s Pixel Weather app has been my go-to weather application. I love its simplistic and Pixel-y UI, the customizable home screen, the excellent pollen tracker, and more. For what I want in a weather app, Pixel Weather checks just about every box.

Recently, though, I’ve been using another app instead. I stumbled across Gradient Weather while scrolling through Threads a little over a week ago, and almost immediately after downloading it, I knew I had found something special.

Pixel Weather is still great, but after using Gradient Weather, I think it might 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’ve been really happy with its forecasts.

Rather than using a single source for its weather info, Gradient Weather relies on a few different sources (including public weather stations, which you can view on the weather map) and funnels that info into its “built-in accuracy engine,” which is supposed to create forecasts as accurate as possible. So far, it seems like it’s working.

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

For example, in the screenshot above, Gradient Weather shows the hourly forecast with a nice bar graph that shows the temperature creeping up throughout the day. Pixel Weather also has rising numbers with its hourly forecast, but without an accompanying visual element.

I also really prefer how Gradient Weather presents weather alerts (such as weather watches and warnings). Not only do alerts change colors depending on what they’re for, but Gradient also shows the full alert in the app, rather than sending you to your browser to read it the way Pixel Weather does.

There are other little touches like that throughout Gradient Weather’s weather data. The sunrise/sunset widget is better than Pixel Weather’s, showing how many hours and minutes of daylight remain, 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 functioning compass on the wind widget. These are small details, yes, but ones I really appreciate.

Then there’s Gradient Weather’s weather map, which is much more powerful than Pixel Weather’s. Instead of just showing precipitation on the map, Gradient also includes 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 just conditions like sunny and cloudy, but also rainbows and sunsets.

Something else Gradient Weather does better than Pixel Weather is notifications. Google’s weather app can send general weather forecast notifications, precipitation notifications, and … that’s it.

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

Finally, on the note of customization, Gradient Weather is just a delight. You can change the app theme to match current weather conditions, your phone’s system accent color, or create a completely custom one. You can customize the dark theme, change the font style, and completely rearrange the home screen however you’d like. There are even custom app icons and a customizable widget (which is leaps and bounds better than any other third-party weather app widget I’ve ever seen).

Comparing Gradient Weather side-by-side with Pixel Weather, Google’s app still has a couple of key advantages.

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

You also need to pay for a “Premium” membership to access all of Gradient Weather’s features — namely, full notification/alert support, all of the theme and layout tools, and widget customization. That’ll set you back $22/year, $3.50/month, or $33 for lifetime access. I appreciate the option for 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, with everything Gradient Weather gets right — and the fact that you can use it on any Android phone, not just Pixels — I think it’s fair to say that it’s my new favorite weather app on Android. Is it perfect? No. But considering it was just released a little over a week ago and is already this good, I cannot wait to see where it goes next.

I still love Pixel Weather, but for now, Gradient has my heart.