As we reported back in August, Google has been giving the Fitbit app a massive makeover to make it more useful and more attractive too. We liked what we saw in August's beta release, and now the final version is rolling out worldwide to everybody.
In a post on the official Google blog, Ajay Surie explains that "The new, simplified app is now easier to use and organized around three tabs — Today, Coach and You — to bring the health and wellness information you care about front and center."
Google has highlighted five key changes to the app that should make your fitness tracking even easier and more useful.
What's new in the Fitbit app?
One of the handiest new features is that the app can now track your activity even if you don't have your Fitbit or Pixel Watch on you. The phone app can now track walks, runs or hikes in its MobileTrack section, which you can also use for food and weight tracking and what Google describes as "cheering, taunting and messaging friends."
The Today tab is completely customisable, enabling you to set it to focus on the things that matter most: not just fitness but sleep tracking and stress management too.
The new Coach tab, which we previously saw in the beta, makes it much easier to find appropriate workouts. You can filter available workouts by type, time, what equipment (if any) is required and which instructor delivers them, and if you have a Fitbit Premium subscription there are additional classes including HIIT, dance cardio and workouts from fitness partners including Alo Moves and Tone It Up.
The information the app provides has been made more useful too. Now your charts include clear explainers for metrics and trends so the data isn't just a bunch of numbers. Simply click on the data to see more about tit.
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Last but not least, privacy controls are improved too: you can review and manage your data from inside the app. Google promises that "as ever, your Fitbit health and wellness data won't be used for Google ads and will be kept separate from Google ads data".
The new Fitbit app is rolling out now.
Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series; her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was shortlisted for the British Book Awards. When she’s not scribbling, Carrie is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind (unquietmindmusic).
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