GoKawiilGoogle unveiled the AI Coach and a redesign of the Fitbit app in August, but this month announced it will completely replace its existing wellness apps with Google Health. That means that those who use Google Fit will be asked to install the new app and migrate their data, while those who currently have the Fitbit app will see a rebrand. Since the interface is quite different from even the fairly recent redesign in 2023 and the August overhaul is just now coming out of public preview, I thought I would evaluate its performance.
Compared to older iterations of the Fitbit app, the first difference longtime users might notice is the layout of information on the home (or Today) page. Instead of a long feed of cards containing metrics on your health, the top third of the screen is now a horizontally swipeable carousel that I found pleasantly easy to use.
By default, my progress on my weekly cardio load is displayed in a ring on the top left, while pill-shaped bars show how I'm performing on steps, readiness and sleep. Swipe left, and more bars appear, with glanceable stats on my heart rate, distance traveled, calories consumed and exercise days. Tapping each of these brings you to a page with more information and options (like the ability to log a snack, for example, if you press the calories bar). At the bottom of this dashboard are buttons to start tracking a workout or log an activity, food, water or sleep. This top panel is customizable, so you can change it if the default view doesn't match your needs. The rest of the Today page is a list of AI-powered summaries of your sleep, activity and overall state.
In general, I found the redesigned app easy to use. Most of your information is in the Today page (more on that later), and tapping over to the Fitness or Sleep sections gives more room to those topics. Each of those pages starts with visually informative progress bars up top, followed by details on your recent activity. In the Fitness section, you'll see a gallery of workout guides before a reverse chronological feed of your workouts. Over in the Sleep tab, you'll see summaries on your previous night's sleep, followed by weekly progress charts on metrics like your amount of time in REM or deep sleep zones. At the bottom is a series of "Sleep better" guided meditations.
Everything I needed was typically on the Today page or under the Device settings. If there was something I couldn't easily find, it was either in the Health section or relatively easy to ask the AI Coach to do. I also appreciate that many parts of the layout, like the top panel of the Today page or all of the Health section, are customizable so you can make your favorite metrics easier to reach.
I did have a small gripe about the logging interface. Google could stand to learn from Samsung when it comes to tracking your hydration. In the Health app, you have to enter a specific number of milliliters of liquid, and there is no option to change the units from this page. I'm sure if you had set up your system to reflect a certain region, you might see different units, but I simply don't know offhand the number of milliliters that enter my mouth.
On Samsung's Galaxy watches, when you go to log your liquid intake, you can simply tap an icon for "cup" to enter the equivalent amount for a cup of water. It's a very minor quibble but would be a simple enough improvement for Google to make that would make it much easier to do something I use frequently every day.
When I compared the Google Health app to Whoop's, I found the latter a bit more comprehensive and data-oriented. Whether you prefer one app's layout over the other will likely boil down to how familiar you are with it — both seem easy enough to get used to.
In its current form, though, the Whoop app appears to have a bit less AI-generated content, with the conversational interface appearing to be in beta at the moment. Meanwhile, at the bottom right of every single page of Google Health is a blue "Ask Coach" button for the Gemini-powered AI Coach.
Google's AI Coach, powered by Gemini
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