Google Health replaces Fitbit after 14 years with AI-powered wellness features

Fitbit, as we all know as one of the world’s most recognizable fitness platform, is now transforming into Google Health. The Google-owned fitness app is rebranding into a Google Health, marking a major shift in company’s health and wellness strategy. According to Google, the company is pushing deeper into AI-powered fitness tracking along with bringing personalized health insights and that’s the reason it decided to update its 14 years of Fitbit into Google Health. Also Read: Is Fitbit going away? Google Account move becomes mandatory soon: What you need to do

Google Health replaces Fitbit app

Google has started rolling out Google Health 5.0 and it has started gradually appearing for users over the past week. It replaces the familiar Fitbit branding that millions of users relied on for managing overall wellness, steps counting, workouts tracking, and monitoring sleep.

The users first noticed the transition when they pre-ordered the new Fitbit Air. They reportedly discovered that their devices would not function without the updated app version.

Besides this, there were some users who also reported that they received their fitness tracker before the Android update became widely available. Hence, it started leading to extreme confusion and complaints online. Later, Google confirmed on Reddit that it was speeding the rollout process to avoid the activation issues for users.

Fitbit app gets a major redesign

While the app’s new identity might create confusion among users and is one of the biggest changes, but the user experience will still remain familiar to longtime Fitbit users. Nevertheless, Google has redesigned several parts of the platform in order to create a cleaner and more secure and focused experience.

The refreshed version – Google Health now comes with four primary sections. These include:

• Fitness
• Sleep
• Health

The app is launched with an aim to provide useful insights to users along with offering personalized recommendations. All these will be offered in simple format and there will be no bombardment of large amounts of raw data and charts.

As per Google, the goal is to make the health tracking feel more like interacting with a smart wellness assistant rather than manually analyzing statistics.

AI becomes the centre of the experience

One of the biggest additions come with Google Health is Google Health Premium. Previously the feature was known as Fitbit Premium. What’s good news for users is that the pricing still remains unchanged and the service will include Google’s AI-powered health concierge feature that was earlier limited to beta users.

Google Health’s AI system will analyze user activity, sleep data, health trends, and workout routines to offer more personalized fitness suggestions to user. It will cover wellness guidance and provide contextual insights that adapt to individual user behavior over time.

Additionally, the tech giant is also expanding the kinds of information that user can upload on the app. For premium subscribers, the company now allows to add medical records directly into Google Health. Nevertheless, keeping privacy and safety in mind, the data is protected with end-to-end encryption.

According to Google, user will remain in control of privacy permissions and account settings.

End of an iconic fitness brand

Fitbit has been around for 14 years, and has been a huge influence in the fitness tracker space for an extended time before smartwatches have become ubiquitous. To many Fitbit users, the app was synonymous with step counting and wearable fitness technology.

Now, though, Google seems more interested in making the Fitbit part of the Google health suite than in maintaining it as an independent brand.

Availability and roll out details

The Google Health update is already rolling out in both Android and iPhone platforms. It will be rollout based on different geographic accessibility and timings.

The changes also bring about a new name change of “Google Health (Fitbit)” for users searching for the Fitbit app on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.

Add Techlusive as a Preferred Source

Fitbit users won’t have to download a separate app. The new Google Health experience is automatically unlocked with the current Fitbit app update to v5.0.