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 virtually definitely 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 annoyed 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 sooner and fitter.
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 so much just like the Cost 5 in dimension and form. Plus, sources at 9to5Google claimed the Cost 6 is coming with new assist for Google apps like Maps and YouTube Music.
As for the Pixel Watch 2, latest rumors counsel it will steal many of the Fitbit Sense 2’s well being sensors and revamp its train UI from the last-gen mannequin, resembling extra seen coronary heart fee zones throughout exercises. Plus, it will get instruments like automobile crash detection that no Fitbit watch has obtained but.
Loads of Fitbit followers might 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.Â
The most recent Fitbit-branded units just like the Fitbit Versa 4 and Sense 2 backslid in key areas within the final 12 months, as did the Fitbit app when it misplaced challenges, adventures, and open teams earlier this 12 months. 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 should 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 will possibly take to reinspire health followers. Listed below 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 change into more and more troublesome to enhance health tracker {hardware} from 12 months to 12 months with out making them prohibitively heavy or costly.Â
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 decide different manufacturers that give them free information throughout many of the similar sensors and classes.
As a substitute of specializing in well being development experiences — that are helpful, however simple to take as a right — Fitbit must make a splash in different areas.Â
For starters, it has loads of difficult exercises and guided packages, some partnered with well-known health manufacturers like Les Mills. It had the proper concept when it partnered with Will Smith for a exercise program; it simply could not have predicted the Oscars fiasco just a few months later. Since then, Fitbit hasn’t added any main packages.
Truth 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 does matter as a lot as high quality once you’re figuring out in the identical lounge time and again.
If Fitbit would leverage Google’s cash to vastly broaden 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 spend money on Premium as a result of Google invested in it.Â
On prime of that, we heard final 12 months that Google needs to combine Fitbit and Put on OS into Chromecast so you possibly can see coronary heart fee, energy burned, and different information on the TV whilst you work out. That is one other perk of Apple Health+ that we might 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 selection would have it double down on this technique.
Possibility 2: Problem Garmin’s suggestions
Fitbit is mostly thought-about among the finest manufacturers for sleep monitoring, which supplies you dependable outcomes when calculating your Day by day Readiness Rating. However from that time on, Fitbit solely tells you what number of Energetic Zone Minutes you need to attempt to hit that day, and recommends indoor exercises primarily based on that quantity.
For comparability, with a Garmin watch, you may be really helpful a low-aerobic, high-aerobic, or anaerobic exercise of various intensities and lengths primarily based in your Physique Battery rating and restoration time estimate.Â
To place it one other approach, Garmin and Fitbit use the identical data to guage your capacity and readiness to work out. With that information, Fitbit will let you know to finish X Energetic Zone Minutes and level to considered 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.Â
As well as, the Garmin Coach function helps you to obtain a operating or biking coaching plan with the objective of hitting a selected distance or tempo after just a few months. It’s going to obtain tons of exercises to your Garmin Calendar that step by step enhance in problem towards that objective.Â
Every technique is legitimate, and Garmin definitely would not have Fitbit’s coaching movies. But when Fitbit branched out to do extra outside coaching steering as well as to its indoor strengths — taking Day by day Readiness to the subsequent stage for athletes — that’d be an encouraging signal.
As a substitute, proper now, your Fitbit calculates Cardio Health — which is mainly VO2 Max information — however would 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, apart from a goal length.Â
If Fitbit started to supply extra detailed exercise suggestions, tethered to your Google Calendar, and out there on Fitbit trackers that value considerably lower than the greatest Garmin watches or Apple Watches, Fitbit would have a compelling edge over the health group.Â
Possibility 3: Go all-in on Google apps
This appears to be the trail Google and Fitbit have chosen, so let’s have a look at if it is prone to succeed.
The Fitbit Sense 2 and Versa 4 switched up the Fitbit OS to look extra like a light-weight model of Put on OS, with entry to Google Maps and Pockets. On the similar time, nevertheless, Fitbit made some baffling selections: it disabled the wi-fi antenna already current within the watch, eliminated music storage and third-party apps, and ended Google Assistant assist.
With the Cost 6, the 9to5Google leak suggests it will have Maps assist and YouTube Music playback controls linked to your telephone. As a health tracker, it is not prone to have a mic or speaker for any sensible assistant; we are able to at the least hope it will have Google Pockets, because the Cost 5 had NFC tap-to-pay assist.Â
The deal with YouTube Music appears a bit odd. Most health watches and trackers provide 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 prone to provide. It feels extra just like the deal with Google apps hurts relatively than helps right here, since numerous Fitbit followers are iPhone customers that most likely favor Apple Music or Spotify controls.
It additionally appears unlikely that Fitbit will ever get Google Assistant again. We have heard rumors that Google is chopping again on assist for Assistant on something in addition to 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 finances {hardware}.
Usually 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 quick time period, it is going to most likely solely ship restricted returns earlier than you’d should improve to the Android-only Pixel Watch 2 for correct app assist.
The ultimate possibility, 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.Â
Trying 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 search out related HIIT, dance cardio, and extra primarily based on “exercise sort, length, required gear, 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.Â
Nonetheless, I can not deny that Fitbit has had a gradual 2023, and Google’s acquisition hasn’t essentially delivered the enhance that individuals 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 take advantage of Fitbit for all its price primarily based on clients’ goodwill and model recognition.
