{"id":893,"date":"2026-05-26T20:31:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T20:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=893"},"modified":"2026-05-26T20:31:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T20:31:08","slug":"google-health-fitbit-app-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=893","title":{"rendered":"Google Health is here, but a lot of people want their Fitbit app back instead"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The Fitbit app is no more. Along with the launch of the new Fitbit Air<\/a> (which you can expect a full review of once we\u2019ve spent more time with it), Google has officially replaced it with Google Health<\/a>, as previously announced<\/a>, and many of the responses we\u2019ve seen so far are full of confusion, frustration, and requests to get the old app back.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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One post<\/a> on Reddit calls out a common issue, saying, \u201cI can\u2019t even completely fill up my home screen. They only have 2 large tiles available and I can\u2019t just scroll down to see everything.\u201d The landing page has a small section up top showing steps and some other basic stats, but part of the app\u2019s main page is now reserved for recent activity updates and chatty notes from Google\u2019s AI health coach.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The AI didn\u2019t have much to say to me, but for my senior editor, Richard Lawler, it started a conversation about today\u2019s plans that he wasn\u2019t quite ready to have with a chatbot.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Screenshot: Richard Lawler \/ Google<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Not everyone is annoyed by the AI bot however, with one person commenting<\/a>, \u201cWhen I ask it to design a moderate workout using my office gym equipment, circuit style, I usually end up feeling great afterwards.\u201d Another person called it \u201cquite a helpful feature,\u201d<\/a> showing how they were able to update their sleep log with a missed session by chatting with the AI bot.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Another user<\/a> said, \u201cThis graphic UI looks like something an 8 year old would make,\u201d while someone else complained<\/a>, \u201cWhy must I now scroll through paragraphs of AI slop on every tab before I can actually see my activities and data? I don\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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One post<\/a> on Google\u2019s help center sums things up, saying, \u201cThis app is a huge disappointment and a total time drain to get minimal results. How can I get back to using what worked?!\u201d Many others were in agreement, with one reply saying<\/a>, \u201cit\u2019s no longer a genuine fitness app.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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On Google\u2019s blog post, its sample image shows a version of the Today screen with all of the information and an AI chat that we couldn\u2019t get to show up, but did appear for some users. There doesn\u2019t seem to be any way<\/a> 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\u2019s Feature Privacy Controls<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Most of the Google Health landing page is updates from the AI health coach.<\/figcaption>Screenshot: Stevie Bonifield \/ Google<\/cite><\/span><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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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 \u201cToday\u201d page or tab over to the \u201cHealth\u201d page. To find logs for my rowing workouts that I had stored in the old Fitbit app, I had to go into \u201cHealth,\u201d then down to the \u201cFitness\u201d section in \u201cFocus areas\u201d, where my logs were viewable under \u201cExercise days.\u201d In the old Fitbit app, I could see the \u201cExercise days\u201d block by just scrolling down on the app\u2019s main \u201cToday\u201d page.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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According to a support page<\/a>, 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\u2019t need those. While Google\u2019s Rishi Chandra told The Verge<\/em><\/a> earlier this month that Google Health will eventually support third-party wearables, my Nothing Watch Pro 3 currently isn\u2019t enough to unlock those two extra tabs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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