Fitbit’s app is becoming Google Health — something that could change the future of consumer technology long-term.
Breaking news: Google no longer thinks like a closed company. Something unusual happened in consumer health technology this week, as Google made a move that could ripple across the wearable industry and perhaps how everyday people deal with longevity.
Starting from May 19 Fitbit app will officially become Google Health, replacing the familiar fitness tracking experience with a broader AI health platform designed around sleep, fitness, health and preventative care (1). On the surface, it sounds like another Big Tech rebrand, but underneath, Google could completely change the economics of wearables.
For years, companies like it WHO and HURRY sold consumers on a simple promise: pay a subscription, wear the device, and get a deeper understanding of your body. Recovery scores, sleep analysis, and fitness metrics have become status markers for healthy people.
Google’s new strategy looks different. Instead of positioning the wearable as a product, it positions the health data itself as a platform. This may be more important than any new sensor.
The redesigned Google Health app reorganizes the experience into four simplified tabs: Today, Fitness, Sleep, and Health. This may seem trivial, but the simplification is intentional. Google is trying to make health tracking feel less like reading medical charts and more like checking the weather. Most people don’t want to “biolime” their lives. They just want to feel better, sleep better and find out why they are tired by 3pm.
The company says the new design is designed to help users “live better and healthier” with “uninterrupted tracking and adaptive coaching.” In practice, this means that Google is taking the sprawling world of health metrics and translating it into something more conversational and accessible.
And then comes the bigger aspect: AI coaching. Subscribers to Google Health Premium, an evolution of Fitbit Premium, get access to the Google Health Coach powered by Gemini, Google’s AI-powered multimodal assistant and chatbot. The promise is an active and personalized guide that adapts to users over time. It’s like a medical assistant in your pocket.
For the average user, this completely changes the relationship. Instead of opening an app to look at numbers you barely understand, the software starts interpreting patterns for you: why you’ve been sleeping less, why recovery is going to be harder this week, or how stress might be affecting your body.
Why old companies can be nervous
The announcement blew up on LinkedIn after longtime entrepreneur Leonard Rinser posted a scathing response. He argued that Google’s strategy is clear: “Don’t sell the bracelet. Own the health data layer.” The line came down because it exposes the pressures currently facing subscription-based wearables companies (2).
WHOOP’s business model depends on recurring memberships. ŌURA combines premium hardware with annual subscriptions. Meanwhile, Google is willing to make basic tracking more widely available and instead monetize the broader ecosystem.
This is the same strategy that Big Tech has used time and time again. Create a cheap (or free) entry point and take advantage of the platform below.
The concern for smaller indoor players is not just competition but commoditization. As sleep tracking, fitness insights, and AI fitness training become standard features within large operating systems, wearable autonomous devices risk becoming replaceable hardware. If the real power lives in the software layer that ties everything together, the bracelet becomes less valuable.
This does not mean that ŌURA or WHOOP will disappear. In fact, companies are already evolving beyond fitness tracking. ŌURA expanded deeper into women’s health and clinical partnerships, while WHOOP pushed for broader blood transfusion and health optimization.
Apparel companies saw this. Also, it’s really a story about longevity going mainstream. For years, long-term technology has sat on the sidelines of culture—expensive clinics, elite athletes, the optimized culture of Silicon Valley. But the language of longevity has slowly entered into everyday life. Sleep scores, metabolic health, and recovery are other niche concepts only considered by biohackers; are becoming a consumer habit.
Google understands this change. It’s redefining longevity through everyday software that’s leading millions of people to sleep better, reduce stress, and adopt healthy routines before illness sets in.
At the same time, the more personalized health platforms become, the more intimate data sharing becomes. Consumers are increasingly handing over biological patterns, emotional states and behavioral rhythms to technology companies in exchange for guidance.
The next chapter in longevity will be about who interprets our health data and who benefits from it. Google’s design may look like a simple app update. In fact, it may mark the moment when longevity became the main race of technology.
(1) https://support.google.com/fitbit/answer/17068213?hl=en#zippy=
(2) https://www.linkedin.com/posts/leonardrinser_breaking-google-just-changed-the-rules-of-activity-7458402881608740864-aGy1
