Fitbit users are getting this great free Google upgrade

With the new Google Pixel Watch imminent, Google is continuing to enhance and refine its fitness and health features – not just for the Pixel Watch, but for the best Fitbits and Fitbit smartwatches, too. 

As spotted by 9to5Google, a new article on support.google.com details how you can show your Google Fit or Fitbit metrics on your Google Nest Hub 2.

According to the article, you'll be able to see your key stats such as the steps you've taken and the calories you've burned. But the feature hasn't rolled out to everybody yet; when it does you'll find it in the Assistant settings, where you'll be able to connect the device to your tracker or smartwatch. At the moment the second generation Nest Hub only shows sleep tracking, so this is a useful upgrade for 2nd-gen Hub users; the article is specific to that device and at the moment it's unclear whether other smart diplays will also get the feature.

Google's health hardware push in 2022

The article is the latest in a series of little improvements that paint a bigger picture: Google is starting to deliver the Fitbit integration with its Wear OS that it bought Fitbit for, and the Pixel Watch is expected to be the first Google device to really make use of Fitbit's features and tracking.

It also shows Google is thinking about what tech legend Walt Mossberg calls "ambient computing". That's an ecosystem where the various computers around you – your smart speaker, your smart watch, your home hub, your Chromebook, your Android phone, your TV and more – act as portals for all your stuff, enabling you to get whatever you want on whatever happens to be handy. It's similar to what Apple has been doing for some years now, with features such as Apple Fitness+ using data from your Apple Watch to inform the workouts on your Apple TV+ and the lines between computers and mobile devices getting ever more blurry.

Google has been lagging a bit behind in the health and fitness sector recently – in Android wearables, it's devices such as the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 that have been delivering the goods – so it's good to see Google getting its workout gear on: improvements in Wear OS will benefit more than just Pixel owners.