Google is killing all these Fitbit features as part of Google Health transition

Google just announced the Google Health app yesterday, which is effectively a rebranded Fitbit app. The company outlined the new app’s features at the time of the announcement, but it quietly revealed some bad news for Fitbit app users.

A Google support page (spotted by 9to5Google) reveals that a host of Fitbit features have been dropped or substantially changed as part of the transition to the Google Health app. For starters, the Fitbit app’s badges are disappearing altogether.

“Badges will no longer be supported. New badges won’t be generated, and your historical badges will be deleted,” Google explains. Instead, the company says the Google Health Coach “will help to celebrate your progress and accomplishment.” Yes, Google thinks its AI chatbot is a replacement for the badge system.

Google is also freezing social features in the Fitbit app as part of the switch to Google Health. However, the new app will drop a variety of legacy social options. This includes the ability to choose unique usernames and profile pictures, support for direct messages and notifications, groups, and community feeds. The company also says child profiles can no longer have or add friends, while the weekly leaderboard now supports steps and cardio load.

There are also plenty of cutbacks in the Health and Wellness section. For one, you can no longer view graphs of your stress checks in the mobile app. Instead, Google recommends you use the Scan Quick Reset option on the Fitbit Charge 5, Charge 6, and Sense wearables. The company is also saying goodbye to minute-by-minute skin temperature data, telling users to check out the daily and weekly skin temperature trends instead.

The health and wellness changes don’t end here, either. Google will no longer let you set calorie targets via food plans, although you can set them (as well as macronutrient targets) via the Nutrition section of the Health tab. The company also says recipes are no longer available for Google Health Premium users, while weekly fitness plans replace the daily plans seen in the Health Coach public preview.

Google is also dropping several sleep-related features as part of the switch from the Fitbit app to Google Health. This includes sleep profiles, monthly sleep animals, and Estimated Oxygen Variation (EOV). In lieu of sleep profiles, Google is directing Premium subscribers to the Health Coach for personalized sleep-related responses. Big fan of the EOV feature? The company says you should instead check your SpO2 data to track oxygen saturation levels. Google is also killing snore detection on the Fitbit Sense and Versa 3, but didn’t offer an alternative solution via its support page.

Google is making changes to third-party health/tracking connections, too. On the upside, the company previously confirmed that the app can connect to Health Connect, Apple Health, and several other third-party apps.

Unfortunately, there’s bad news for diabetics and other people who need to check their blood glucose levels:

Connections to Lifescan devices will no longer be supported. However, you can still manually log your glucose data.

If that’s not bad enough, Google says you can no longer add symptoms to blood glucose tracking. Furthermore, the feature will no longer remind you to check your levels.

Needless to say, it’s hard to shake the feeling that the switch from the Fitbit app to Google Health was extremely rushed in light of all these missing features. It’s particularly concerning to see the company skipping key blood glucose features it offered in the first place.