Google Health Innovates, but the Absence of Fitbit is Felt

After a night of intense work on an article about Google's smart glasses, an editor woke up with only five hours of sleep. Google Health did not fail to point it out, saying: "You have quality sleep, but not enough." The reminder prompted him to pay attention to his sleep habits.

The app advised drinking water, relaxing and going to bed earlier. These recommendations proved useful, setting the app apart from the other fitness trackers used previously. The new Fitbit Air, which syncs with Google Health, is comfortable and easy to forget on the wrist. However, the real innovation lies in the AI-generated health summaries, which offer personalized coaching on a subscription basis.

While this feature is exactly what has been awaited for years on wearables, it is regrettable that it is not built into the Fitbit app, now retired. Google Health made it possible to report that muscles felt heavy, and Google's Gemini AI used this information to provide useful, if sometimes intrusive, observations.

The text-based activity and sleep summaries are a clever idea, and the ability to discuss history trends with the AI is innovative. However, simply reviewing the observations and acting on them is preferable, with no need to dialogue with the AI.

Google Health was told that a weight-training session had taken place one day, and the app logged the activity. It then kept bringing up those same weights daily, without suggesting other activities to try. The text can sometimes seem cluttered, and the clear charts and statistics layouts that the Fitbit app offered are missed.

After a week of poor sleep habits, marked by an exhausting stretch during Google I/O and a weekend at a Princeton reunion where bedtime did not come until 3 a.m., Google Health helped explain the need for recovery. The app highlighted which short nights of sleep were the most restorative.

Google Health's sleep analysis was appreciated, with its advice on rest, recovery and self-care. Once the reunion was over, bedtime came earlier and sleep that Google Health judged beneficial was achieved. However, the app also interpreted a 19-minute walk at 1:44 a.m. on Saturday as a "good way to start Sunday," when it was simply a walk on a day when more than 17,000 steps had been exceeded, exhausted and looking for an Uber to get home.

While the AI summaries are appreciated, it would be better to see them integrated into a sidebar or a separate panel, while the standard Fitbit summaries stay front and center. However, if that happened, Google probably could not push its AI health coach as aggressively as it currently does, which is not appreciated. The wish is for the health journey to look like a dashboard, not a news feed.

The Google Health app has dashboards for sleep and health statistics, reachable with a simple tap, but none of them seems as comprehensive and distilled as what Fitbit previously offered at a glance. With no screen on the Fitbit Air, these statistics readings on the phone are more necessary than ever.

This is seen as an evolutionary step. Perhaps other wearables, including smart glasses, will provide on-demand screens to deliver the desired readings. But what would happen if Google's Gemini layer were invoked as needed? As Apple prepares its next version of WatchOS and wearables like the Oura ring continue to evolve, AI-infused summaries and coaching will inevitably be the future of health technology.

However, there is not enough trust in AI to engage in deep conversation with it, and text-based summaries and advice can become exhausting. How about infusing these observations into useful infographics? Or simply bringing back that Fitbit app and adding Gemini? There is still time to consider this, Google. Not everything has to be an AI feed, even if Google I/O clearly showed that this is the direction Google wants to take.