What is a simple exercise class in the healthy AI era?

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The exercise band is self-made, but casual. It’s light, easy to wear, not something you have to think too much about. It’s cheaper than a smartwatch. You get your steps, baseline heart rate, and sleep tracking. Maybe you can see the time, maybe you can’t. But unlike most wearables these days, a fitness tracker isn’t designed to be your phone’s companion and all the complications that come with it. It was a simple tool with a simple purpose: to make you move more.

Ten years ago, no one was better than Fitbit.

For a while, it was Kleenex or Band-Aid for clothes – a brand so ubiquitous that it was synonymous with a whole bunch of products. Your mom probably doesn’t remember the Jawbone, FuelBand, or Mio Slice. But for a while, everyone called the fitness band Fitbit.

But Fitbit hasn’t been the same since Google he found the company in 2021.

The difference between Fitbit and Google has been complicated ever since. In many ways, it was similar to how Google helped acquire Nest. At first, the two were seen as different people. Then, gradually over the years, users were encouraged to transfer accounts from Nest to Google. The product was first renamed Nest by Google, then Google Nest. The Nest app is still available, but it’s undergoing maintenance. It works with old stuff, but you can’t combine it with new stuff.

Fitbit’s Nest-ification has its differences – for example, there were some critical points when Fitbit experienced a serious server problem, and users were angry when Google started sunsetting. (2023 was a hard transition year.) But one of the most confusing things was creating things. When the Google Pixel Watch debuted in 2022, it was accompanied by a new one Fitbit Versa 4 and Fitbit Sense 2. This is a trio of smart watches, with two Fitbit watches having a scary look. Separating them all was a headache. The Fitbit Price 6 after a year, and there has been radio silence until the announcement of the Fitbit Air earlier this week. (I don’t really count Ace LTE – this was for children.)

Meanwhile, Fitbit became Fitbit and Google. Users are staying are encouraged to migrate their Fitbit accounts to a Google account. The Air is Google’s Fitbit Air now. And on May 19, the Fitbit app will no longer exist. The green and white Fitbit logo will be replaced with a colorful heart icon for Google Health.

“Fitbit’s DNA is a great tracker — a tracker that anyone can go and use,” explains Rishi Chandra, Google’s vice president of health and home. “The question I get is, ‘Well, why did it take so long to launch the new equipment?’ The truth is, we didn’t want to start just another tracker.”

That’s why Google bundled with the announcement of the Google Health Coach and Health program. Sure! But why not just call it the Air Pixel Band and be done with it?

“Pixel is just Android,” says Chandra bluntly. “We want to make sure we can create the most advanced, wearable technology with the latest sensors possible for the user. Fitbit was designed to work with every iOS and Android phone from the ground up.”

Chandra adds that Google sees these as two very different segments and will continue to do so in the future. Fitbits is the go-to, easy-to-use app for everyone. Pixel watches are very important, only compatible with Android. But, elsewhere, the remnants of the old Fitbit were stuffed into Google’s big machine.

Again, this has been a long time coming. But it was a very painful denouement and a clear sign.

Fitbit’s struggles didn’t start with the Google acquisition. By 2021, Fitbit was squeezed. It couldn’t quite find a killer smartwatch, bested by Apple, Samsung, and even Garmin in this arena. And at the time, smartwatches were where all the fun was happening in terms of health technology. In the tracker space, China’s low-cost brands undercut Fitbit’s prices while offering the same tracking information.

In 2026, it’s a different story. More and more, I hear from readers that they are tired of smartwatches. Screenless apps like Whoop and Oura are popular left and right. And despite the proliferation of screens, people cry out left and right Less overstimulation from the amount of notifications and pinging. At the same time, the wearable industry is taking comfort because as AI becomes more and more common in these devices, it is important that people to wear with as few breaks as possible. (After all, part of the costume design is that they allow companies to learn about you 24/7.) So it makes sense that Google decided to return to the roots of Fitbit with a simple, affordable fitness tracker.

But the Fitbit Air isn’t rebooting itself. Chandra assured me that it’s a one-two punch with Google Health Coach. AI in fitness has always been available in the form of algorithms and machine learning to reduce data. But automatic AI on fitness trackers – these “trainers” that provide information – arrived long after Fitbit started playing second fiddle to the Pixel Watch.

Part of the word is simplicity. Do you have an overwhelming amount of data with forty bazillion metrics and biomarkers to track? Well, here’s AI to explain all your details and provide personalized health. Now you can take control of your health! These were the points that Chandra reviewed. This, and the retention of health data, and a major challenge in the health technology space. I can’t argue with Google’s game plan on paper. The thing I want to gently challenge, however, is the idea of ​​AI making any of this as easy as the old-school Fitbit was.

In 2015, the Fitbit Charge HR was my first tracker. After that, I graduated to the Alta HR, and for years, another version of Fitbit was my daily driver. What was Fitbit? He helped me diagnose polycystic ovary syndrome after two years I am surprised by my data. It recorded the most amazing events in my life – just like when I started a phone call from the FBI or I got it stepped into the movie theater on a false alarm of a shooting. In the latter case, a significant increase in heart rate in my Fitbit data was the only evidence that a false alarm had occurred.

Mostly, I was a data scientist. It was boring. I always have to go through reference dates and biometric data with my analog records. Ten years ago, I think I would have been more open to many of the logging and tagging I have come to hate. But looking back, I wonder how Google Health Coach could interpret something like a panic moment? Can I get a summary of the morning sickness the next day, telling me to see a doctor? Should I do that? explain the pressures of my life to find what I love? This was not a problem with the old Fitbit. As much as I appreciate how far the community has come, how health saves lives, there is a part of me that wishes it was the way it was. Simple, sometimes boring, no less.

I know I’m not alone there. Google knows it too. When I spoke to Chandra about Airhe told me that his main goal was to serve many people who feel that clothes are too much, complicated, and expensive. But what Me thinking that what he is feeling is very difficult. Data exhaustion. And while I can get behind the AI ​​theory of making data insights easier to find, my experience has told me that it creates some resentment. We may be seeing a resurgence of simple hardware, but software, metrics, and the amount of data collected is the new ball.

In the hours since Air was announced, I’ve had many friends, colleagues, and acquaintances reach out to me for my thoughts. Most of them ask because they are looking for all the bells and whistles the smartwatch promises. They want to stop data fatigue, and maybe the popular Fitbit is just the trick. First of all, I don’t comment on my final thoughts before the test. But talking like a Fitbit diehard? Going back to the old Fitbit is not an option at this point. This is something new. I’m not really sure what that is. All I know is that the tracker version is long gone.