Up until now, you could either access a minimal amount of health data and coaching through the free version of the Fitbit App or opt in for the full-bells-and-whistles Fitbit Premium Subscription. However, this might change very soon as it seems Fitbit is testing the waters via a survey sent to the users of the app about a new, cheaper Fitbit Premium service. Fitbit Premium Lite incoming?
As spotted by Android Central and reported by 9to5Google, "Fitbit is preparing to debut a third subscription tier, which costs $2.99 per month": this is more than 2/3 cheaper than the current Fitbit Premium subscription. But as opposed to beefing up the new offering by including more features than the ones found in the free version, Fitbit will instead move some of the free features over to the new subscription service, such as accessing "your activity, sleep, stress, and health metrics for the last month, year, forever with unlimited historical data."
UPDATE 23 February 2021 | Fitbit officially addressed the concerns about the new, cheaper Fitbit subscription with the following statement:
“We continue to invest in Fitbit Premium, our subscription service launched in 2019, to bring even more health and wellness insights and motivation to people around the world. Like many brands, we occasionally survey our user community to gain valuable feedback on everything from features they might like to see to pricing, and this helps us continue to deliver accessible tools that will help users meet their unique health goals."
The statement goes on by saying "We are not announcing any changes to Fitbit Premium pricing at this time and want to assure customers that as stated, we will continue to protect Fitbit users’ privacy by maintaining strong data privacy and security protections, giving you control of your data and staying transparent about what we collect and why.”
Bye bye, historical sleep data
After the new plan has been implemented, it's likely that the free version of the app will only display health data about the last 30 days or even just a week in some cases. We are sure there will be other perks when users sign up for 'Fitbit Premium Lite' but for now, there isn't much information about what will be included in the new price plan.
Truth to be told, there is already an even pricier tier of the Fitbit Premium service, at least in the US: for $54.99 a month, Fitbit users can access 1-on-1 health coaching through the Fitbit App. Admittedly, this is pretty expensive but offers a "structured to-do list so you know what to focus on each week".
Despite the introduction of the new tier, we still expect new features to be trialled in the free version and then moved over to the priced plans, once they've been perfected using a larger pool of user data and feedback.
In the meantime, and especially if you want to get a new Fitbit, have a look at our best Fitbits guide and also the roundup today's best Fitbit deals. For those who have plenty of time on their hands to read Fitbit-related content, check out this comprehensive Fitbit Versa 3 review or this comparison of the Fitbit Sense vs Fitbit Versa 3.
