The Fitbit app is no longer available. Along with the launch of the new Fitbit Air (which you can expect a full review of once we’ve spent more time with it), Google has officially replaced it with Google Health, as previously announced, and most of the responses we’ve seen so far have been full of confusion, frustration, and requests to bring back the old app.
One post on Reddit calls out a common problem, saying, “I can’t even completely fill my home screen. There are only 2 large tiles available and I can’t just scroll to see everything.” The landing page has a small section at the top that shows steps and other basic stats, but part of the main page of the app is now dedicated to the latest job updates and discussion notes from Google’s AI health coach.
AI didn’t have much to say to me, but for my editor-in-chief, Richard Lawler, it started a conversation about today’s systems that weren’t ready to have a chatbot.
Screenshot: Richard Lawler / Google
Not everyone is upset with the AI bot though, with one person commenting, “When I ask it to design a moderate workout using my office gym equipment, circuit style, I tend to feel better afterwards.” One person called it a “very useful feature,” showing how they were able to update their sleep record for a missed session by chatting with the AI bot.
One user said, “This graphical UI looks like something an 8-year-old could do,” while another complained, “Why do I now have to check AI slop categories in every tab before I can see my activities and data? I don’t want or need to read notes about my 15-minute trip to the grocery store. I want to see my morning stats from this morning.”
One post on Google’s help center sums things up, saying, “This app is a huge disappointment and takes time to get little results. How can I go back to using what worked?!” Many others agreed, with one response saying, “It’s not a real fitness app anymore.”
In Google’s blog post, its sample image shows a version of today’s screen with all the information and AI chat that we couldn’t show, but it appeared to some users. There doesn’t seem to be a way to remove the Ask Coach window / task that takes up too much screen time, but the bot can be disabled within the Privacy Controls feature of the new app.
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Even though I knew the switch to Google Health was coming, I was still confused the first few minutes after opening the app this morning.
If you want to see more of your statistics and health tracking data, you should swipe left from the small box at the top of the “Today” page or tab to the “Health” page. To find the logs of my rowing activity that I had saved in the old Fitbit app, I had to go into “Health,” then down to the “Fitness” section of “Focus Areas,” where my logs looked under “Exercise Days.” In the old Fitbit app, I was able to see the “Exercise Days” block by simply going down to the main “Today” app page.
According to the support page, if you have a supported wearable connected, Google Health shows two additional tabs for Fitness and Sleep that could make things easier, but before the redesign I didn’t need them. When Rishi Chandra of Google told The Verge earlier this month when Google Health will finally support third-party wearables, my Nothing Watch Pro 3 is currently not enough to open those two extra tabs.
