GoKawiilAfter spending all night working on a story about my hands-on time with Google's upcoming smart glasses, I woke up weary from five hours of sleep. Google Health was sure to make me aware of that: "You're getting high-quality sleep but not enough of it," the app said when I opened it. I paid attention.
I was encouraged to drink water, take it easy and get to bed earlier. I appreciated the summary, and it felt a bit different from any other fitness tracker I've ever used before.
The new Fitbit Air is comfy and easy to forget about when it's on your wrist, but the rebooted Google Health app it pairs with is the real change. Deep AI summaries of daily health progress -- written up using generative AI -- are the biggest focus. The subscription-based AI coaching feels like exactly the kind of feature I'd wanted on wearables for years. Now that it's here, though, I wish it were layered onto the now-retired Fitbit app instead of existing as an entirely separate experience.
I told Google Health my muscles felt heavy, and it seems to have served that up to me again. Scott Stein/CNET
Gemini's AI observations are helpful, but can be spammy
Text-based AI summaries of activity and sleep data are a clever idea, and being able to chat with the AI about trends in my history feels genuinely novel. But I don't find myself wanting to chat with it; I just like to glance at the observations and act accordingly.
I told Google Health I'd done some weight training one day, and it logged the activity based on my description. Beyond that, though, I wasn't especially interested in telling it how I felt or what my plans were. Mentioning that workout just once also led Google Health to repeatedly remind me about those same weights each day, instead of suggesting other activities I might want to try.
Text, however, can feel messy. Plus, I like charts and clear stat layouts. The Fitbit app always excelled at that, and while Google Health still offers some of those stats on tap, the instant-glance dashboard is largely gone.
The Fitbit Air is comfy and feels invisible, which helps me wear it all the time. Its sleep observations are impressive, too. Vanessa Hand Orellana/CNET
Gemini mostly managed my exhaustion
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