Sunday Runday
On this weekly column, Android Central Wearables Editor Michael Hicks talks concerning the world of wearables, apps, and health tech associated to working and well being, in his quest to get sooner and healthier.
Google pandered to runners like me with the Pixel Watch 3, and barring a few errors and lacking options, it did a wonderful job. However my pleasure was instantly tempered by the information of one other nail within the Fitbit model’s coffin, one which limits who’ll really get to benefit from these new working instruments.
Up till now, working with a Pixel Watch was a bare-bones expertise. You turned on the GPS, noticed just a few stats in your wrist throughout a run, and acquired a easy abstract afterward.
The Fitbit OS is barely higher, although I discovered sure options, like creating intervals, needlessly sophisticated. Additionally, its day by day suggestions and Premium exercises all the time felt extra geared in direction of indoor exercises.
The Pixel Watch 3 modifications issues, including instruments like user-made exercises, AI-generated runs primarily based in your Every day Readiness, a cardio load rating that takes weeks of exercise knowledge and your goal load under consideration, working kind insights, and a Morning Transient summarizing all the things you have to know earlier than a run.
Google even says it improved coronary heart charge accuracy when working by decreasing “mild artifacts” attributable to speedy arm pumping. Primarily based on our evaluate testing, the Pixel Watch 2 was no slouch on this space.
It is not all the things I might need out of a working watch, to be clear. The Pixel Watch 3 will not allow you to race previous occasions. You’ll be able to’t obtain offline GPX maps, and Google has but to take full benefit of Google Maps for issues like programs or Again to Begin. There isn’t any Garmin Coach equal for long-term coaching plans, both. However that is nitpicking, and Put on OS 5 has issues heading in the right direction.
I am extra upset that Google did not observe Samsung’s instance with the Galaxy Watch 7 and put dual-band GPS within the Pixel Watch 3. I’ve had unhealthy luck with GPS-only monitoring on the Fitbit Cost 6, although the Watch 3 antenna must be significantly better. I can not actually criticize it till I take a look at the accuracy for myself, nevertheless it does really feel like a barely missed alternative.
So what is the actual downside? It is that the way forward for Fitbit smartwatches apparently rests on the Pixel Watch, and it stays unsure if Google intends to deliver these Fitbit insights to Fitbit-branded watches (and I would not guess on it).
Engadget’s Cherlynn Low interviewed Sandeep Waraich, senior director of product administration for Pixel Wearables, on the Made by Google 2024 occasion earlier this week when Waraich gave her some unlucky information.
Low requested Waraich about different Fitbit-branded smartwatches; he responded that “Pixel Watch is our smartwatch a part of the portfolio” and that any Fitbits transferring ahead would supply a minimalist expertise. He says Fitbit customers need “a easy expertise” and pointed to the Fitbit Encourage 3 for instance.
He clarified that Fitbit Sense 2 and Versa 4 will stay accessible, however we might not see Sense 3 or Versa 5 for a very long time, if ever.
Android Central reached out to Fitbit, asking if these new working options might be added to previous Sense and Versa watches and to verify the information above. A spokesperson responded, saying that Google is “very dedicated to Fitbit” and to “the purchasers that use and rely upon these merchandise and expertise.” Nonetheless, they didn’t touch upon whether or not we’d see these new working options in your Fitbit anytime quickly, which does not depart me very hopeful.
RIP Fitbit as a separate entity
I’ve written previously about Fitbit’s struggles as a model, so I am going to preserve it temporary. Fitbit was a top-selling wearable model, nevertheless it fell from seventh to tenth in complete gross sales in 2022, as per Counterpoint, and now not often seems exterior of the “Different” class on business stories.
Google minimize the territories the place it offered Fitbit gadgets in half in late 2023. Just a few months later, Fitbit’s executives — together with founders James Park and Eric Friedman — left Google underneath unclear circumstances. Since then, Fitbit has presumably fallen underneath the Google wearables umbrella, with nobody left to advocate for Fitbit as a separate entity.
The final Fitbit-branded gadget — launched earlier than the chief exodus — was the respectable Fitbit Cost 6. It was primarily a reboxed Cost 5 with new Google apps and a Google-made algorithm for higher coronary heart charge. We might hoped new Sense and Versa watches had been subsequent; as a substitute, we’ll in all probability see a petite Fitbit Encourage 4 band subsequent yr.
Here is the issue: Fitbit’s pivot to deal with low-cost health bands makes little or no financial sense. Take a look at this 2024 Canalys report exhibiting how smartwatches dominate primary bands in complete gross sales. In 2020, trackers and smartwatches made up 46% and 37% of the market, respectively; at this time, primary bands solely account for 17%, versus 37% for smartwatches. By 2028, analysts predict, it’s going to be 12% and 48%, respectively.
Abandoning your Fitbit smartwatches for the Pixel Watch 3 and tiny Fitbit bands feels…short-sighted. It cuts out Fitbit’s many iOS energy customers, in addition to Android-using athletes who need a light-weight health watch that lasts per week and never a 24-hour Pixel Watch or a tiny-screened Encourage with no built-in GPS.
Although the Fitbit Cost 6 is the finest health tracker accessible at this time, many individuals skip it due to the comparatively excessive value and subscription. Jitesh Ubrani, IDC’s analysis supervisor for wearables, says Fitbit has struggled to compete towards “low-cost, value-oriented manufacturers comparable to Xiaomi, Amazfit, or Huawei.” Why spend $160 + $10/month when you possibly can pay $40 for a Xiaomi Good Band 9?
In mild of that, I might all the time hoped that Fitbit would double down on its health smartwatches, optimizing its health software program and well being sensors on the Sense and Versa lineups, then porting these options to the Pixel Look ahead to Android energy customers who do not care as a lot about battery life.
As a substitute, at this charge, Fitbit will turn out to be extra area of interest than ever because it pivots to the health band kind issue that most individuals are beginning to abandon in favor of smartwatches or sensible rings.
Manufacturers like Garmin, Coros, and Polar nonetheless cater to runners, however these focus rather more on coaching steerage than well being knowledge. The Pixel Watch 3 takes the reverse method, and I am genuinely excited to place it by means of its paces. Nonetheless, Fitbit’s {hardware} might have struck a steadiness between health and well being, in addition to smarts and effectivity. That is not gonna occur now.
