Google rebrands Fitbit as Google Health

Wearables are the easy part. The hard part is the app you open every day — the one that turns steps, sleep, heart rate, and workouts into something useful. That’s the real news here. Google is replacing the Fitbit app with Google Health on May 19, and the move is bigger than a rename. It’s Google finally deciding that Fitbit is the device brand, while Google Health becomes the software layer that tries to tie everything together. ### What is actually changing on May 19? The existing Fitbit app will automatically update into Google Health between May 19 and May 26. Users do not get an option to stay on the old app. Google says the new app keeps the core Fitbit tracking experience but rebuilds it around four tabs — Today, Fitness, Sleep, and Health — with a new design and broader health features. (support.google.com) ### Is Fitbit going away? Not exactly. Fitbit the app is going away, but Fitbit the hardware brand is not. Google is still selling Fitbit devices — including the new Fitbit Air — while shifting the software identity to Google Health. Basically, this looks a lot like what Google did with Nest: keep the consumer device name people recognize, but move the app and service under a broader Google brand. That framing is an inference, but it matches how Google describes the split. (support.google.com) ### Why make this move now? Because Google has spent years with two overlapping health stacks — Fitbit and Google Fit — and that never made much sense. The new app is clearly the winner inside Google. 9to5Google says Google Fit data migration tools are planned for later this year, which tells you where this is headed: one health home, not two half-supported ones. (blog.google) ### What’s new in the app besides the name? The headline feature is Google Health Coach, a Gemini-powered assistant for fitness, sleep, and general wellness. It can build adaptive workout plans, respond conversationally, and use multimodal logging — meaning you can log things by text, voice, or a photo. Google is also pushing medical-record integration in the U.S., so the app can pull in lab results, medications, and visit history to give more context-aware guidance. (9to5google.com) ### How much does the AI part cost? Google Health Premium — the renamed Fitbit Premium tier — costs $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year. Google is also bundling it into Google AI Pro and AI Ultra in more than 30 countries. That matters because it turns health coaching into part of Google’s bigger subscription bundle, not just a niche Fitbit upsell. ### What do users lose? (9to5google.com) Some classic Fitbit features are being cut or changed. The list includes badges, Sleep Profile’s monthly animals, and parts of the old community-style experience. That sounds minor, but for longtime Fitbit users those little gamified touches were a big part of the product’s personality. Google is betting that better coaching and cleaner health data matter more than nostalgia. ### Is this about more than Fitbit owners? Yes — that’s the point. Google is pitching Google Health as a broader health platform, not just a companion app for one tracker line. The app is already available in more than 200 countries, and Google has been expanding the coach across more countries and languages. The obvious strategy is to make health data more portable, more centralized, and more useful across Google’s devices and services. (9to5google.com) ### So what’s the bottom line? Google didn’t just repaint Fitbit. It turned Fitbit into the front-end hardware label for a larger Google Health system — one that leans hard on Gemini, subscriptions, and eventually a single home for Android health data. If Google executes, this fixes years of product overlap. But if the AI feels gimmicky or the missing Fitbit features sting too much, users will notice fast. (support.google.com) (9to5google.com)