The Fitbit of old is all but gone as Google makes another big change

Ever since Google acquired Fitbit in 2021, we’ve seen the Fitbit we knew disappear before our eyes. The fitness trackers themselves may look similar, but a lot of the ethos behind the brand that popularised health tech has been gobbled up by Google.

This includes never making any new Fitbit smartwatches and stripping the Fitbit app of longstanding features such as social challenges, much to the annoyance of diehard Fitbit fans.

There have also been multiple bugs affecting several Fitbit models, including a glitch Express.co.uk reported on earlier this year that took more than six months to be fixed, despite Google appearing to be aware of the issue.

Another thing that has seen major change is the Fitbit app, which has now adopted a design very similar to Google’s other apps. The latest change, as spotted by 9to5Google, is to overhaul the Fitbit settings screen to look just like the device settings screen of the Pixel Watch app.

Google in fact forces Pixel Watch owners to use the Fitbit app to track their health and fitness data, as this is confusingly not included in the Pixel Watch app.

Google has chosen to update the Fitbit app very slowly rather than all at once, meaning over the past few months pages just suddenly updated to reflect Google’s design language, while others have stayed in the old design from when Fitbit was still an independent company.

I’ll admit that the redesign was overdue because the legacy Fitbit pages look somewhat outdated in 2025, but Google’s sluggish update schedule has made using the Fitbit app a messy experience.

At the time of writing, practically every section of the Fitbit app is now thoroughly Google-ified, apart from the Food tab, which is stuck in the old design. Recently the Health metrics section was fully updated for both iPhone and Android versions of the app, with colours and fonts fully changed, wuth a cleaner UI and more spread-out design.

It's not unusual for apps to get such updates, but it's notable just how long Google is taking to change the Fitbit app. It makes me wonder if there will ever be a new Fitbit tracker released, given the last one to come out was the Charge 6 in 2023. Is this app destined to become the Pixel Watch app?

Google has mostly kept the functionality of old Fitbits the same, but there have been unfortunate decisions along the way. The release of the Fitbit Versa 4 and Sense 2 in 2022 saw Google remove Wi-Fi and third party apps from the smartwatches, making them much less smart.

When Google has added functionality, it has been Google-focussed, such as the addition of Google Maps and Google Wallet to the Versa 4 and Charge 6.