Google is making a big change in AI health with the Fitbit Air

It’s a croak trick. That was my first thought when I saw the new $99 Google Fitbit Air. You can hardly blame me. The belt is screenless with a metal fabric buckle. My eyes flicker between my Fitbit Air and my wrist, where I’m wearing a Whoop MG. Did I not see weakness?

But as my press conference continued, my opinion began to change. The Air is kind of like the OG Fitbits that Whoop then tricked out once Fitbit got into smartwatches. Think back to 2012, when your Fitbit One could be attached to your pants, turned into a necklace, or hung from a keychain. That device was mostly a pedometer, while the Air is a modern sensor that can be taken out of one band and stuck into one of three others. But in many ways, this feels like a return to Fitbit’s roots, a simple, casual tracking bracelet.

“The reality is that wearables have made huge advances, but for many people, they’re still either too complicated, too bulky, or too expensive,” says Rishi Chandra, Google’s vice president of health and home. Edge. “And that’s where the Fitbit Air came in. We wanted something you could give your kids and parents that they could put on their arm. They didn’t have to learn anything new.”

Compared to previous Fitbit trackers, the Air is 25 percent smaller than the Luxe and 50 percent smaller than the Inspire. It weighs only 12 grams with the bracelet, and 5.2 grams without it. There are no buttons, although there is an LED charging light and haptics for silent alarms. Sensor-wise, it’s not as high-tech as the Pixel Watch, but it has the basic stuff: an optical heart rate sensor, a gyroscope, an accelerometer, a blood oxygen sensor, and a skin temperature sensor for sleep tracking. You can submerge it in water up to 50 meters deep, and the battery lasts seven days on a single charge. This is somewhat disappointing, but it was typical for old-school Fitbits, too. At least this device is claimed to give you one day’s worth of juice for five minutes. It will also work simultaneously with the Pixel Watch, meaning if you prefer to wear the latter during the day and the Air for workouts and sleep, now you can. (Recently, Fitbit has not supported multiple devices.)

But the air is not a sign that Google is reviving Fitbit as it was. This is Fitbit’s first hardware product in nearly four years, but it comes alongside the death of the Fitbit app. Starting May 19, Fitbit and the Health Connect app for Android will be combined into one Google Health app. Fitbit Premium subscription? It is also being rebranded as Google Health Premium, although the price will not change. Above all, it is AI-powered health coach He left the beta version and released it to the public.

This is not surprising. Since Google It acquired Fitbit For $2.1 billion in 2021, Fitbit is slowly but surely being integrated into Google’s overall umbrella, just as it did with Nest. The transition wasn’t always smooth. A long time ago Fitbit users were angry Due to widespread service outages, neglected features like challenges, and a confusing lineup of wearables once the Pixel Watch was introduced. Then, in early 2024, Fitbit’s original lead He was laid off.

“I know it’s going to be hard for people. It’s been hard for us internally,” Chandra says, referring to the rebrand. “But as we think about the future, where the health app should go, the health app won’t just be for Fitbit devices… We want to be a health coach for the Apple Watch user as well. That’s why we had to rebrand.”

Another reason, says Chandra, is that the current health data market is too fragmented. Before now, Google itself had two separate apps: Fitbit and Health Connect. Before that, it was Google Fit. Many wearable device users have their data stored across a range of apps, including Strava, Garmin, Peloton, etc. Their medical records are often stored on other systems. In some cases, health app data can be hidden depending on your phone’s operating system. That’s why, Chandra says, Google Health will be compatible with iOS and will eventually work with third-party wearables like Garmins, Whoops, and Ora. (However, initially, it will be limited to Pixel and Fitbit devices.) This platform-agnostic approach also goes back to Fitbit in the past. It’s just that this time it’s under Google’s name.

However, the Google Health app won’t come as a shock to many Fitbit users. He was there Beta public preview Since October. In a press conference, Google said that nearly 500,000 users participated in the beta, and the company received more than a million pieces of feedback. Based on this feedback, Google says the final version will add back the missing features (the preview didn’t include cycle tracking, for example), more flexibility with fitness training, a more customizable interface to highlight metrics, a more accurate sleep algorithm, and a less chatty AI coach.

“For us, this isn’t saying, ‘We’ll launch this and see you in six months or a year, and then hopefully we’ll update it,’” Chandra says, stressing that the plan is to continue pushing out frequent updates based on feedback.

By putting these three ads together, Chandra says Google is trying to write a distinct story. In short: Here’s a simple, affordable device for the average person that pairs with a unified health data platform, complete with a built-in AI coach. Subscribe, and you’ll get the most simple, low-effort way to get personalized insights and take control of your health. In this case, you can get adaptive fitness plans, chat with AI about your medical records, use your phone’s camera to record meals, and ask how your various health metrics relate to each other.

Google isn’t the only wearables manufacturer trying this — and in a parallel universe, I’d bet standalone Fitbit will embark on this path as well. But, like Apple, Google is one of the only players that can benefit from the data consolidation part of the equation. But the part where everyone is currently stumbling is artificial intelligence. I have tested almost all of the major AI health, fitness, and nutrition coaches. They are either Hallucinating dogs or Book reports are useless. Not to mention data privacy concerns related to sensitive health information. (On that front, Google says it will continue to keep Fitbit data separate from its advertising business; AI model training is enabled and turned off by default.)

“This is a very difficult problem,” Chandra admits when asked about this. “The reason we’re doing the public preview is because we need to make sure we don’t make major mistakes. Accuracy here is critical…but we’re going to make mistakes. We’re going to try to point out those mistakes when we can, and we’re going to try to acknowledge them and continue to improve the product as we move forward.”

It’s a big swing. Personal health is the holy grail of the wearables and health industry right now. Every new wearable launch, improved scale, and AI feature is moving towards this goal. I’m not a fortune teller. I don’t know how Google’s health maneuvers will go. What I do know — and Google will likely disagree — is that the era of the old Fitbit is definitely over.