Throughout the subsequent two weeks, Google and its Fitbit model will launch two new wearables: the Pixel Watch 2 and an unnamed Fitbit that is nearly actually the brand new Cost 6. Every ought to include 6 months of free Fitbit Premium to tempt health followers. The query is, after such a tough stretch for Fitbit since its Google acquisition, can these trackers flip issues round for pissed off long-time customers?
Sunday Runday
In his weekly column, our Senior Editor of Wearables and Health Michael Hicks talks concerning the world of wearables, apps, and health tech associated to operating and well being, in his quest to get quicker and more healthy.
Fitbit will announce a brand new “thriller” machine this Thursday, however it’s not a lot of a secret. Its latest Twitter/X submit exhibits a glimpse of a health tracker that appears a heck of rather a lot just like the Cost 5 in measurement and form. Plus, sources at 9to5Google claimed the Cost 6 is coming with new help for Google apps like Maps and YouTube Music.
As for the Pixel Watch 2, latest rumors recommend it’s going to steal a lot of the Fitbit Sense 2’s well being sensors and revamp its train UI from the last-gen mannequin, akin to extra seen coronary heart fee zones throughout exercises. Plus, it’s going to get instruments like automotive crash detection that no Fitbit watch has obtained but.
Loads of Fitbit followers may even see the Pixel Watch 2 as a part of the issue: Google retains taking Fitbit’s greatest options and shoving them into its personal smartwatch, with out giving sufficient again to maintain Fitbit distinctive.
The most recent Fitbit-branded units just like the Fitbit Versa 4 and Sense 2 backslid in key areas within the final yr, as did the Fitbit app when it misplaced challenges, adventures, and open teams earlier this yr. Plus, Google has confronted fines and criticism for refusing to say the place your Fitbit well being information is bought.
So what do Fitbit followers need to get enthusiastic about, and the way does Google reinspire their confidence? That is a query each corporations will begin to reply on September 28 with the (alleged) Fitbit Cost 6. However whether or not it is a game-changer or extra of the identical, the Cost 6 will not reverse Fitbit’s dipping gross sales by itself. Fitbit has a number of potential routes it could possibly take to reinspire health followers. Listed here are just some of them.
Possibility 1: Problem Apple Health+ extra
If the Cost 6 actually is a Cost 5 clone with extra Google apps, which will or might not underwhelm Fitbit followers, however it’s probably not a shock. It is develop into more and more tough to enhance health tracker {hardware} from yr to yr with out making them prohibitively heavy or costly.
So in lieu of bettering the {hardware}, Fitbit must deal with making its Fitbit Premium subscription one thing price paying for, when customers know they will choose different manufacturers that give them free information throughout a lot of the identical sensors and classes.
As an alternative of specializing in well being pattern studies — that are helpful, however simple to take without any consideration — Fitbit must make a splash in different areas.
For starters, it has loads of difficult exercises and guided applications, some partnered with well-known health manufacturers like Les Mills. It had the proper thought when it partnered with Will Smith for a exercise program; it simply could not have predicted the Oscars fiasco a couple of months later. Since then, Fitbit hasn’t added any main applications.
Reality is, Fitbit Premium’s 200+ exercises fall properly in need of the 4,000+ exercises you get on Apple Health+ for a similar month-to-month worth. Amount and selection matter as a lot as high quality once you’re understanding in the identical front room time and again.
If Fitbit would leverage Google’s cash to vastly increase its exercise program — and its YouTube Music library so as to add licensed music to its exercises, as Apple does — that may inform indoor health followers they need to put money into Premium as a result of Google invested in it.
On prime of that, we heard final yr that Google needs to combine Fitbit and Put on OS into Chromecast so you’ll be able to see coronary heart fee, energy burned, and different information on the TV when you work out. That is one other perk of Apple Health+ that we would like to see emulated, together with a devoted Fitbit app on Google TV the place you’ll find exercises simply.
The Fitbit app actually prioritizes indoor exercises over outside exercises. This feature would have it double down on this technique.
Possibility 2: Problem Garmin’s suggestions
Fitbit is mostly thought of probably the greatest manufacturers for sleep monitoring, which provides you dependable outcomes when calculating your Each day Readiness Rating. However from that time on, Fitbit solely tells you what number of Lively Zone Minutes you must attempt to hit that day, and recommends indoor exercises based mostly on that quantity.
For comparability, with a Garmin watch, you will be really helpful a low-aerobic, high-aerobic, or anaerobic exercise of various intensities and lengths based mostly in your Physique Battery rating and restoration time estimate.
To place it one other approach, Garmin and Fitbit use the identical info to guage your means and readiness to work out. With that data, Fitbit will let you know to finish X Lively Zone Minutes and level to certainly one of its official HIIT movies. Garmin will create an algorithm-generated outside exercise tailor-made to enhance your VO2 Max and ship a balanced train load.
As well as, the Garmin Coach function helps you to obtain a operating or biking coaching plan with the aim of hitting a selected distance or tempo after a couple of months. It’s going to obtain tons of exercises to your Garmin Calendar that step by step enhance in issue towards that aim.
Every technique is legitimate, and Garmin actually does not have Fitbit’s coaching movies. But when Fitbit branched out to do extra outside coaching steerage as well as to its indoor strengths — taking Each day Readiness to the following degree for athletes — that’d be an encouraging signal.
As an alternative, proper now, your Fitbit calculates Cardio Health — which is principally VO2 Max information — however does not do a lot with it besides to make use of it to guage the standard of your runs after the very fact. You are by yourself for planning your outside exercises, other than a goal period.
If Fitbit started to supply extra detailed exercise suggestions, tethered to your Google Calendar, and accessible on Fitbit trackers that price considerably lower than the greatest Garmin watches or Apple Watches, Fitbit would have a compelling edge over the health neighborhood.
Possibility 3: Go all-in on Google apps
This appears to be the trail Google and Fitbit have chosen, so let’s examine if it is more likely to succeed.
The Fitbit Sense 2 and Versa 4 switched up the Fitbit OS to seem extra like a light-weight model of Put on OS, with entry to Google Maps and Pockets. On the identical time, nonetheless, Fitbit made some baffling decisions: it disabled the wi-fi antenna already current within the watch, eliminated music storage and third-party apps, and ended Google Assistant help.
With the Cost 6, the 9to5Google leak suggests it’s going to have Maps help and YouTube Music playback controls linked to your telephone. As a health tracker, it is not more likely to have a mic or speaker for any sensible assistant; we are able to not less than hope it’s going to have Google Pockets, because the Cost 5 had NFC tap-to-pay help.
The deal with YouTube Music appears a bit odd. Most health watches and trackers supply platform-agnostic playback controls linked to your telephone; they solely use particular apps in the event you can stream or obtain music from that app — one thing the Cost 6 is not more likely to supply. It feels extra just like the deal with Google apps hurts quite than helps right here, since a number of Fitbit followers are iPhone customers that most likely choose Apple Music or Spotify controls.
It additionally appears unlikely that Fitbit will ever get Google Assistant again. We have heard rumors that Google is reducing again on help for Assistant on something moreover Android telephones, Put on OS watches, and different first-party units. Fitbit is technically a “first-party” model, however in Google’s efforts to make its assistant smarter, it is also making it tougher to place Assistant on price range {hardware}.
Typically talking, each Android and iOS customers love Google apps. However there aren’t many Google apps that might work safely on Fitbit units, as a result of they should prioritize battery life over efficiency. So whereas the Fitbit-Google partnership does profit new Fitbit watches within the brief time period, it can most likely solely ship restricted returns earlier than you’d need to improve to the Android-only Pixel Watch 2 for correct app help.
The ultimate choice, one I do not need to take into consideration, is that Google stays its present course. It continues to take all of Fitbit’s greatest options and shove them into the Pixel Watch to problem Apple and Samsung, whereas the greatest Fitbit trackers principally stay stagnant.
Wanting on the latest Fitbit app redesign, it is clear that it principally repackages the options like exercises that had been already current earlier than. It makes it simpler for customers to seek out related HIIT, dance cardio, and extra based mostly on “exercise sort, period, required tools, teacher,” and different standards. However you will not essentially discover something new.
The Fitbit Cost 5 is our favourite health tracker regardless of being two years previous, whereas the Pixel Watch is among the greatest Android watches. Regardless of my doom-and-gloom ideas on Fitbit’s future, I am hopeful that the Cost 6 and Pixel Watch 2 will reside as much as that legacy and impress us.
Nonetheless, I can not deny that Fitbit has had a gradual 2023, and Google’s acquisition hasn’t essentially delivered the increase that folks hoped for. So I am very curious to see whether or not Fitbit and Google have a plan to maintain Fitbit Premium related, or if Google merely hopes to exploit Fitbit for all its price based mostly on prospects’ goodwill and model recognition.