Starting Today, the New Google Health App Replaces the Fitbit App.
The new Google Health app begins rolling out today, replacing the Fitbit data-tracking app on Fitbit and Pixel Watch devices. It was demonstrated during Fitbit’s public preview, and the final app is now available to everyone.
The final version of the app is definitely better than the preview, but it still has its issues—here’s what I’ve noticed so far. (By the way, you don’t need to do anything to get the Google Health app—just wait, and the update will be available to you within the next week or so.)
How is Google Health different from the Fitbit app?
The new Google Health app, featuring a rainbow heart painted in watercolor, replaces the Fitbit app. Some Fitbit features will be permanently lost (no more sleeping animals!), social features will be limited, and everything will work with your Google account, not a separate Fitbit account.
The best features are still only available for a fee.
Just like with the Fitbit app, there’s still a difference between what you get with a free account and what’s available to you if you pay for a premium subscription:
-
All users have the ability to track their steps, physical activity, and assess their sleep quality.
-
As with Fitbit Premium, you’ll need Google Health Premium to view detailed sleep data, access the workout library, and access the meditation library.
-
Some features that were free in the public preview now require Google Health Premium, including the ability to chat with an AI coach and receive personalized workout plans.
A Premium subscription costs $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year. When you pair a new Fitbit or Pixel device (including the new Fitbit Air ), you’ll be offered a three-month free trial.
Yes, AI still sees hallucinations.
It seems Google has managed to curb the delusions that plagued the AI coach at launch (remember how it didn’t believe me when I told it the Pixel Watch 4 existed ?)… but only partially. For example, today I see a message congratulating me on my sleep quality score of 99, but when I go to my sleep stats, I see that my score was actually 85.
In the preview version, the trainer kept “notes” that could be deleted individually if they seemed to be constantly dwelling on something that was no longer relevant. Eventually, this got so annoying that I deleted everything. The new version of the app uses chat history instead of memories, and conversations now seem slightly more relevant, reflecting what I’ve recently said to the chatbot.
However, there are still many things that bother me. The bot interprets everything I say as a request for a condescending lecture. Sometimes it links to what appears to be a source, but the links are often irrelevant to the conversation. Once, it linked to a Reddit thread with a similar question I just asked—but the only response in that thread was, “Here, I’ll copy the answer I got from ChatGPT.” That’s typical chatbot behavior.
Tracking your metrics with Google Health Coach is quite convenient.
One of the nice things about Google Health Coach is that you can use it to record the food you’ve eaten or the exercise you’ve done simply by typing it in—though, as with any AI-powered nutrition app, the exact calories and macronutrients it generates will be approximate. However, for common foods, it should be fairly accurate. For example, I entered a carne asada burrito from Trader Joe’s , and it recorded 460 calories and 25 grams of protein. According to the nutrition label, the burrito contains 490 calories and 22 grams of protein—not exactly accurate, but pretty close.
You can also record workouts by uploading a screenshot from another app, with varying success (it correctly counted the minutes in my heart rate zone during the workout I tested, but it didn’t update my weekly cardio load). You can even use a photo of a written workout routine, like from a chalkboard at your gym, and that should work.
The coach will ask relevant follow-up questions—how long did your board workout take? Do you want to adjust your portion sizes?—though they may sometimes miss details, such as recording “1 rep” of a sled push instead of the specified 50 yards. But if convenience is more important to you than accuracy, this is quite sufficient.