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 quicker and fitter.
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 truly 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 obtained a easy abstract afterward.
The Fitbit OS is barely higher, although I discovered sure options, like creating intervals, needlessly difficult. Additionally, its every day suggestions and Premium exercises at all times 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 Day by day Readiness, a cardio load rating that takes weeks of exercise information and your goal load under consideration, working kind insights, and a Morning Temporary summarizing every part it is advisable know earlier than a run.
Google even says it improved coronary heart price accuracy when working by lowering “gentle artifacts” attributable to speedy arm pumping. Based mostly on our evaluate testing, the Pixel Watch 2 was no slouch on this space.
It isn’t every part I might need out of a working watch, to be clear. The Pixel Watch 3 will not allow you to race previous instances. You possibly can’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 comply with Samsung’s instance with the Galaxy Watch 7 and put dual-band GPS within the Pixel Watch 3. I’ve had dangerous luck with GPS-only monitoring on the Fitbit Cost 6, although the Watch 3 antenna needs to 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 wager 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 shifting ahead would provide 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 shoppers that use and rely on these merchandise and expertise.” Nevertheless, they didn’t touch upon whether or not we’d see these new working options in your Fitbit anytime quickly, which does not go away me very hopeful.
RIP Fitbit as a separate entity
I’ve written prior to now about Fitbit’s struggles as a model, so I will hold it transient. Fitbit was once a top-selling wearable model, nevertheless it fell from seventh to tenth in whole gross sales in 2022, as per Counterpoint, and now not often seems outdoors of the “Different” class on business stories.
Google lower the territories the place it offered Fitbit units 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 machine — launched earlier than the chief exodus — was the respectable Fitbit Cost 6. It was basically a reboxed Cost 5 with new Google apps and a Google-made algorithm for higher coronary heart price. We would hoped new Sense and Versa watches have been subsequent; as a substitute, we’ll most likely see a petite Fitbit Encourage 4 band subsequent 12 months.
This is the issue: Fitbit’s pivot to give attention to low-cost health bands makes little or no financial sense. Have a look at this 2024 Canalys report exhibiting how smartwatches dominate primary bands in whole gross sales. In 2020, trackers and smartwatches made up 46% and 37% of the market, respectively; at present, 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 desire a light-weight health watch that lasts every week and never a 24-hour Pixel Watch or a tiny-screened Encourage with no built-in GPS.
Though the Fitbit Cost 6 is the finest health tracker accessible at present, many individuals skip it due to the comparatively excessive worth and subscription. Jitesh Ubrani, IDC’s analysis supervisor for wearables, says Fitbit has struggled to compete towards “low-cost, value-oriented manufacturers resembling Xiaomi, Amazfit, or Huawei.” Why spend $160 + $10/month when you possibly can pay $40 for a Xiaomi Good Band 9?
In gentle of that, I might at all times 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 an alternative, at this price, Fitbit will change into 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 steering than well being information. The Pixel Watch 3 takes the reverse strategy, and I am genuinely excited to place it by way of its paces. Nevertheless, Fitbit’s {hardware} may have struck a stability between health and well being, in addition to smarts and effectivity. That is not gonna occur now.
