Since the acquisition closed in 2021, the Google-ification of Fitbit has mainly meant cutting back on features and focusing Google on directing people to the Fitbit app. Longtime users have flocked to Fitbit (sometimes at Fitbit’s urging) to share hundreds of complaints about recent changes, but Google has largely not responded to customer feedback.
Users angry over web app demise
In June, Google Retirement of Fitbit.com online dashboardAfter July 8, users who want similar functionality to what was offered in the web app will have to download the Fitbit mobile app. In a Fitbit community forum, a company representative said: Confirmed Users’ “activity, nutrition, sleep and weight details and records” would still be available in the app, the company said. But the change was an inconvenience for users who want or need to access such data on a screen larger than a phone. To make matters worse, the app is missing some features of the online dashboard, such as food logging.
Despite these obvious user drawbacks, the need to search for Fitbit on Google appears to have driven the change. Announcing the news on a community forum, a Fitbit company representative said:
“Combined with Google’s decades of experience in data interpretation, it is our mission to bring Fitbit and Google together as one team. Integrating the Fitbit.com dashboard into the Fitbit app is part of that mission, allowing us to focus on features that provide even more valuable insights for our users.”
Google is investing in the Fitbit app, including plans to allow premium subscribers to test experimental features. Generative AI Fitbit Features Coming soon. Google is also developing large language models for new features in the Fitbit app that it’s forcing users to use. Google has been directing users to the Fitbit app for a while now, but in 2022, Fitbit device lost ability to sync with computer.
It’s worth mentioning that unhappy Fitbit users are likely to complain online, but it’s notable that Fitbit’s announcement has generated 1,523 (as of this writing) mostly negative replies, with new replies still coming in. Another thread A post on Fitbit’s forums calling for the web dashboard to be kept has currently 601 upvotes. One outraged user wrote: Reddittoo.
The most common complaints concern the loss of functionality that was previously available.
“Changes are fine, removing key functionality is not,” said community member Seymourh86. I have written In June, “If we don’t want our talent to go to our competitors…”
Comments this week show that users are still not embracing the change. For example, DebL555 said today that he is “extremely disappointed and frustrated that I can’t access the dashboard on my PC.” Yesterday, NessWeb called the change an “incredibly bad decision,” adding:
This is especially bad for people with visual impairments or finger dexterity problems, and even worse for everyone else, because on a 3 inch screen you can’t see as much as you can on a real computer…
Bring back the web interface!!
As has happened every time Fitbit has had problems since the acquisition, the theory is circulating that Google is making Fitbit worse in order to drive people to the Pixel Watch. Other participants in the community forum were outraged by what they felt was Google ignoring feedback from longtime Fitbit customers.
In June, a user named jessicabilasano wrote:
I just hope Fitbit doesn’t end up being a nightmare product/company like other Google acquisitions. Google, instead of removing what users love about Fitbit’s features, why don’t you improve it? Listen to your customers/consumers.
However, in recent times, poor response to negative customer feedback has become commonplace for the Fitbit brand.
