Fitbit Air & Google Health App: Early Impressions

Summary

The new Fitbit Air, paired with the rebranded Google Health app, offers a familiar yet refined user experience, continuing the core functionality of the previous Fitbit app. Initial impressions highlight weekly cardio accumulation, step tracking, and a daily readiness score derived from heart rate variability, sleep, and resting heart rate. Users can customize dashboard cards to display metrics like heart rate, distance, calories burned, and exercise days, with the ability to adjust weekly targets for cardio or steps. The app also tracks vital signs such as breathing rate, blood oxygen, skin temperature, and offers an AI coach for personalized feedback. Automatic activity detection is a key feature, with the app estimating distance and pace for runs using the accelerometer and stride length, though manual tracking with GPS is available for activities like cycling. Early AI feedback has shown an awareness of user injuries, offering tailored recovery advice. While the app's foundation remains similar to the Fitbit preview, subtle under-the-hood changes are present, requiring further testing for a comprehensive review. The accuracy and effectiveness of the Fitbit Air and the Google Health app will be thoroughly evaluated in upcoming detailed reviews, including comparisons with other devices.