The Fitbit of old is all but gone as Google makes | Tech News

Ever since Google acquired Fitbit in 2021, we’ve seen the Fitbit we knew disappear earlier than our eyes. The fitness trackers themselves could look comparable, but a lot of the ethos behind the model that popularised health tech has been devoured up by Google.

This consists of by no means making any new Fitbit smartwatches and stripping the Fitbit app of longstanding options such as social challenges, a lot to the annoyance of diehard Fitbit followers.

There have additionally been a number of bugs affecting a number of Fitbit fashions, together with a glitch Express.co.uk reported on earlier this yr that took more than six months to be fixed, regardless of Google showing to remember of the problem.

Another factor that has seen main change is the Fitbit app, which has now adopted a design similar to Google’s different apps. The newest change, as noticed by 9to5Google, is to overtake the Fitbit settings screen to look similar to the machine settings screen of the Pixel Watch app.

Google in actual fact forces Pixel Watch homeowners to make use of the Fitbit app to trace their health and fitness knowledge, as this is confusingly not included within the Pixel Watch app.

Google has chosen to replace the Fitbit app very slowly somewhat than all without delay, which means over the previous few months pages simply all of the sudden up to date to replicate Google’s design language, whereas others have stayed within the old design from when Fitbit was nonetheless an unbiased company.

I’ll admit that the redesign was overdue as a result of the legacy Fitbit pages look considerably outdated in 2025, but Google’s sluggish replace schedule has made utilizing the Fitbit app a messy expertise.

At the time of writing, virtually each part of the Fitbit app is now completely Google-ified, aside from the Food tab, which is caught within the old design. Recently the Health metrics part was absolutely up to date for each iPhone and Android variations of the app, with colors and fonts absolutely modified, wuth a cleaner UI and more spread-out design.

It’s common for apps to get such updates, but it is notable simply how long Google is taking to change the Fitbit app. It makes me surprise if there’ll ever be a new Fitbit tracker launched, given the final one to return out was the Charge 6 in 2023. Is this app destined to grow to be the Pixel Watch app?

Google has largely stored the performance of old Fitbits the identical, but there have been unlucky selections alongside the best way. The release of the Fitbit Versa 4 and Sense 2 in 2022 noticed Google take away Wi-Fi and third occasion apps from the smartwatches, making them a lot much less good.

When Google has added performance, it has been Google-focussed, such as the addition of Google Maps and Google Wallet to the Versa 4 and Charge 6.