The Fitbit app has been retired. In a move that was anticipated, Google has replaced it with the new Google Health app, coinciding with the launch of the Fitbit Air. While we plan to provide an in-depth review of the Fitbit Air once we have more hands-on experience, the app transition has sparked a wave of confusion and discontent among users, many of whom are yearning for the return of the original app.
One Reddit user voiced a common grievance, stating, “I can’t even fully utilize my home screen. There are only two large tiles available, and scrolling down to access everything isn’t an option.” The app’s landing page now features a compact section at the top displaying steps and other basic statistics, while a significant part of the main page is dedicated to recent activities and interactive messages from Google’s AI health coach.
While the AI coach offered limited interaction for me, my colleague, senior editor Richard Lawler, found himself engaged in an unexpected dialogue about his daily plans with the chatbot.
Not everyone finds the AI bot frustrating, though. One user praised its utility, sharing, “When I ask it to create a moderate workout using my office gym equipment in a circuit style, I generally feel fantastic afterward.” Another person appreciated its functionality, noting how they were able to update their sleep log with a missed session simply by chatting with the AI.
However, not all feedback is positive. A user criticized the graphical user interface, describing it as something an eight-year-old might design. Another user lamented, “Why must I scroll through paragraphs of AI-generated content on every tab before accessing my activities and data? I don’t need to read platitudes about my 15-minute walk to the grocery store. I want to see my stats from my morning run.”
Another user said, “This graphic UI looks like something an 8 year old would make,” while someone else complained, “Why must I now scroll through paragraphs of AI slop on every tab before I can actually see my activities and data? I don’t want or need to read platitudes about my 15 minute walk to the grocery store. I want to see my stats from my morning run.”
One post on Google’s help center sums things up, saying, “This app is a huge disappointment and a total time drain to get minimal results. How can I get back to using what worked?!” Many others were in agreement, with one reply saying, “it’s no longer a genuine fitness app.”
On Google’s blog post, its sample image shows a version of the Today screen with all of the information and an AI chat that we couldn’t get to show up, but did appear for some users. There doesn’t seem to be any way to remove the Ask Coach / activity window that takes up so much of the screen, but the bot can be disabled from within the new app’s Feature Privacy Controls.
1/3
Even though I knew the switch to Google Health was coming, I was still disoriented for the first several minutes after opening the app this morning.
If you want to see more of your stats and health tracking data, you have to either swipe left in the small top box on the “Today” page or tab over to the “Health” page. To find logs for my rowing workouts that I had stored in the old Fitbit app, I had to go into “Health,” then down to the “Fitness” section in “Focus areas,” where my logs were viewable under “Exercise days.” In the old Fitbit app, I could see the “Exercise days” block by just scrolling down on the app’s main “Today” page.
According to a support page, if you have a supported wearable connected, Google Health shows two additional tabs for Fitness and Sleep that would make things easier, but before the redesign, I didn’t need those. While Google’s Rishi Chandra told The Verge earlier this month that Google Health will eventually support third-party wearables, my Nothing Watch Pro 3 currently isn’t enough to unlock those two extra tabs.
