Google’s Fitbit — Extraordinarily disappointed users reckon with the Google-fication of Fitbit Users seek alternatives as Google is intent on app-centric focus.
Scharon Harding – Jul 17, 2024 9:17 pm UTC Enlarge / The Charge 5 (pictured) has been a source of contention for Fitbit customers.Getty reader comments 140
Since the acquisition closed in 2021, the Google-fication of Fitbit has largely meant a reduction in features and a focus from Google on getting people onto the Fitbit app. Long-time users have flocked to Fitbitsometimes upon Fitbit’s requestto share hundreds of complaints about recent changes. However, Google has been mostly unresponsive to customer feedback. Web app discontinuation angers users
In June, Google announced it was discontinuing Fitbit.com’s online dashboard. After July 8, users seeking similar features that the web app provided have to download the Fitbit mobile app. On Fitbits Community forum, a company representative confirmed that users details and logging for activities, nutrition, sleep, and weight would remain available via the app. However, the change inconvenienced users who preferred or needed to access such data on a bigger screen than a phone’s. Worse, the app lacks some of the features of the online dashboard, such as food logging.
Despite these obvious user drawbacks, the need to Googlize Fitbit seemed to drive the change. Announcing the news on the Community forum, a Fitbit company rep said:
Combined with Googles decades of being the best at making sense of data, its our mission to be one combined Fitbit and Google team. Consolidating theFitbit.com dashboard into the Fitbit app is a part of that mission, and will allow us to focus on features that provide even more valuable insights to our users.
Google has invested in the Fitbit app, which includes plans to let premium subscribers test experimental generative AI Fitbit features soon. Google is also developing a large language model for new features for the Fitbit app that users are being forced onto. Google has been pushing users to the Fitbit app for a while; in 2022, Fitbit devices lost the ability to sync with computers.
It’s worth mentioning that users disgruntled with Fitbit are more likely to complain online. However, it’s notable that Fitbits announcement has been met with 1,523 (as of this writing) mostly negative replies, with new responses still coming in. Another thread on Fitbit’s forum that requests to keep the web dashboard currently has 601 upvotes. You can find outraged users on Reddit, too.
The most common complaints are around losing previously available features.
“Change is fine. Removing key features is not,” Community member Seymourh86 wrote in June. “Unless you want people to go to competitors …”
Comments from this week show that users are not over the change. DebL555, for example, said today that they’re “extremely disappointed and frustrated I cannot access my Dashboard on my PC.” Yesterday, NessWeb dubbed the change “an incredibly bad decision,” adding: It’s particularly awful for anyone with a visual disability or a finger dexterity issue. It’s still bad for everyone else because you just can’t see as much on a 3″ screen as you can see on a real computer …
Bring back the web interface!!
As has been the case every time there have been problems with Fitbit post-acquisition, theories that Google is making Fitbit worse to push people toward the Pixel Watch run rampant. Others on the Community forum were upset because they felt like Google was ignoring feedback from long-time Fitbit customers.
In June, a user going by jessicabilasano wrote:
I just hope Fitbit does not end up like any other Google purchase that turns into a nightmare product/company. Google, instead of removing things that users love about Fitbit features, why not improve them? Listen to your customers/consumers.
However, a lack of response to public, negative customer feedback has become commonplace for the Fitbit brand lately. Page: 1 2 Next → reader comments 140 Scharon Harding Scharon is Ars Technicas Senior Product Reviewer writing news, reviews, and analysis on consumer technology, including laptops, mechanical keyboards, and monitors. Shes based in Brooklyn. Advertisement Channel Ars Technica ← Previous story Next story → Related Stories Today on Ars
