Google gives Fitbit a big health upgrade, but there’s a catch

Google is giving Fitbit users deeper insights into their health, but some of its most interesting new tools come with recurring costs.

Fitbit Air users who subscribe to Google Health Premium will reportedly get Health Guardian features like blood pressure and insulin resistance tracking on October 22 Alphabet (GOOGL).

These features are also available to Fitbit Edge users.

Google says the tools quietly generate monthly reports when users meet minimum wear requirements. Google Health Coach, built by Gemini, helps subscribers understand changing patterns and adjust their health habits.

There is one key difference.

According to Google, these features are for health and not medical diagnosis, and users should see a medical professional or a traditional monitor to confirm any problematic blood pressure trends.

However, this upgrade still represents a major change for Fitbit in the future.

Google is no longer just trying to sell a gadget that tracks steps and heart rate.

The company is increasingly using low-cost wearable technology to collect data, with a $9.99-per-month health subscription service powered by Gemini.

Google puts Fitbit’s smartest features on Premium

Google Health Premium costs $9.99 per month or $99 per year.

The subscription includes Google Health Coach, customized exercise plans, comprehensive sleep insights, nutritional guidance and sophisticated Health Guardian features (formerly Fitbit Premium).

Google says that on supported devices, advanced features include blood pressure, insulin resistance and sleep breathing trends.

Google’s gadgets vary greatly from each other.

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Pixel Watch 3, Pixel Watch 4, and Pixel Watch 5 users can view trends in blood pressure, insulin resistance, and sleep breathing quality without paying for Google Health Premium.

In comparison, Fitbit Air customers need Premium to take advantage of the insulin resistance and blood pressure features.

Because of this, Fitbit devices are becoming a more obvious entry point into Google’s recurring revenue health business.

The $99.99 Fitbit Air includes three months of Google Health Premium.

Google’s new Fitbit Edge sells for $179.99 and comes with a three-month Premium trial.

After the trial ends, customers must decide whether personalized guidance and more advanced health insights are useful enough to justify subscribing again.

This is a well-known tactic in the tech world.

The client enters the ecosystem through hardware. Longer connections are created through software and services.

However, Google may have particularly huge potential because wearable health data becomes more valuable the longer it is collected.

Fitbit is no longer just a fitness tracker

Blood Pressure is a great example of Google’s ambitions.

According to Google, compatible devices can detect long-term changes in cardiovascular trends by analyzing pulse and movement patterns over multiple days, without the need for traditional cuff-worn measurements.

Likewise, the Insulin Resistance feature examines physiological data collected over several weeks.

according to Googlewhose models were trained on more than 1 trillion minutes of data from 5 million opt-in users.

Neither feature is intended to replace clinical testing.

However, the information they provide to Google may help customers identify long-term changes and may provide another incentive to use the gadget, which is much more important than daily steps.

Additionally, Google is integrating more external data into the same app.

The company is adding support for Function Health clinical lab results, enhancing Apple Health integration and allowing users to register meals by taking a photo or interacting with a Google Health Coach.

Google has successfully pushed Fitbit in the direction of a more comprehensive health platform.

Earlier this year, the company renamed its Fitbit app Google Health to begin integrating wearable data, connected apps and medical information into one place.

Additionally, Google said it will start integrating Google Fit users into the same app.

Google’s Fitbit strategy creates greater AI opportunity

Millions more sales of fitness trackers doesn’t always mean greater potential.

It provides Gemini with ongoing personal context that may increase the usefulness of Google Health Coach.

Google Health Coach combines activity, sleep, diet, and other health data to provide recommendations specific to each person.

This gives Google long-term knowledge about what a specific person’s body and habits are really doing, something that general-purpose AI chatbots often lack.

Since launching the new platform, the company has rolled out more than 55 Google Health features and fixes, including improved Coach memory and additional personalization settings.

This approach also increases privacy risks.

Google claims that consumers can manage, delete or export their health data and that it will not use Fitbit health data for advertising.

Business model is important here.

Google has another way to monetize wearable data without relying on ads: directly monetizing health subscriptions.

This might help explain why more advanced features are added to Premium rather than included with every Fitbit purchase.

There are certain risks associated with this strategy.

Customers already have to pay for cloud storage, music, videos, artificial intelligence tools and many other things. Another hurdle is requiring people who bought the fitness tracker for $99.99 or $179.99 to continue paying $9.99 a month.

So to make Premium feel a lot better than the basic health stats customers now get for free, Google needs underlying data.

It’s more telling than step count alone because of changes in blood pressure and insulin resistance.

These attributes indicate more significant changes to Fitbit.

In the past, Google provided fitness trackers primarily to measure user performance.

Now it wants Fitbit to detect changes that customers themselves don’t notice, and let Gemini explain their possible significance.

For Google, the move could mean wearables are just the beginning of a partnership.

Longer bets start with a subscription.

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