Fitbit Is Now Google Health: Everything That Changed, What You Lost, and What To Do Next

If you opened your Fitbit app one morning in May 2026 and found a different app looking back at you, you were not imagining it. On May 19, 2026, the Fitbit app became the Google Health app — a rename, a redesign, and a significant round of feature removals all at once.

Google had announced the change on May 7, 2026. For a lot of long-time Fitbit users it landed badly, because the features that disappeared were the ones that made the platform feel like Fitbit in the first place.

Here is the complete picture: what changed, what is gone for good, what it costs now, and what your realistic options are.

What Changed, at a Glance

The Timeline

That July 15 date has passed. If you did not export before it, the data tied to removed features is gone — Google’s own support documentation was explicit that it would be permanently deleted rather than archived.

Everything Google Removed

This is the full list from Google’s support documentation:

• Badges — and all historical badge data
• Challenges and Adventures — the step competitions with friends
• Groups and the Community Feed
• Direct messaging and friend notifications
• Sleep Profile and the monthly sleep animal characters
• Estimated Oxygen Variation (EOV)
• Snore Detection — Sense and Versa 3 only
• Food Plans calorie targeting
• Premium recipes
• The web dashboard — the app is now the only interface

The pattern is unmistakable: the entire social and gamified layer is gone. Challenges and Adventures had already been killed back in March 2023; this removed what was left, including badges people had accumulated over a decade.

For a meaningful chunk of Fitbit’s user base, that layer was the product. Fitbit built its early success on step competitions with family and coworkers — a genuinely differentiated feature that neither Apple nor Garmin matched. Removing it turns Fitbit into a data-collection platform competing on data quality alone, against Apple, Garmin, Oura, and Whoop.

Losing the web dashboard is the other quiet blow. Anyone who exported spreadsheets, reviewed long-term trends on a large screen, or managed data for a family member now does everything on a phone.

What You Gained: Google Health Coach

The replacement pitch is AI. Google Health Coach, built on Gemini, is the marquee Premium feature. Google describes it as acting as a personal trainer, nutritionist, and sleep coach simultaneously — proactive, personal, and adaptive guidance based on your data. It exited public preview after testing with more than 500,000 users.

Whether that trade works depends entirely on what you used Fitbit for. If you wanted a coach that reads your sleep and recovery data and tells you how to train today, this is a real upgrade over static Fitbit Premium insights. If you wanted to beat your sister at a weekend step challenge, there is nothing here for you.

The Price Increase

Fitbit Premium was $79.99/year. Google Health Premium is $9.99/month or $99.99/year — a 25% increase on the annual plan, in the same release that removed a long list of features.

The mitigations: new and returning users get a three-month trial after updating, and every Fitbit Air ships with three months free.

You do not need Premium. Core tracking works on a free Google account — steps, continuous heart rate, sleep stages, SpO2, workouts, and your history. Premium gates the Health Coach, deeper insights, and custom fitness plans. If you have been paying out of habit, this is a good moment to reassess. Our guide to what Fitbit Premium actually included covers the old feature set for comparison.

Which Devices Work With Google Health

The app supports the Fitbit hardware you already own:

• Charge 3, 4, 5, and 6
• Sense and Sense 2
• Versa 2, 3, and 4
• Inspire series
• Luxe
• Fitbit Air (new for 2026)
• Google Pixel Watch (all generations)

Your existing tracker does not become obsolete. If you are still on a legacy Fitbit account rather than a Google account, you must migrate before the app will work — see our guide to Fitbit account management if you are weighing that decision.

What To Do Now

If you are staying

1. Export your data through Google Takeout. Do it now and do it periodically. Google Takeout covers Fitbit/Google Health data and gives you a local copy that is not subject to the next round of product decisions.
2. Re-evaluate Premium. Take the trial, use the Health Coach for a month, and decide deliberately at $99.99/year rather than renewing on autopilot.
3. Adjust to app-only. With the web dashboard gone, phone exports and Takeout are your route to long-term trend analysis.

If you are leaving

Be clear about which loss is driving the decision, because the replacements differ:

You miss the social competition. Nothing replaces Fitbit’s Challenges at the same scale. Apple Watch has Activity sharing and competitions between friends, which is the closest equivalent and works well if your circle is on iPhone. Garmin Connect has Challenges and Connect IQ community features too.

You miss deep sleep analysis. Sleep Profile is gone, and this is where the smart ring category has genuinely overtaken wrist wearables. See our best sleep tracking rings guide and Oura Ring vs Fitbit.

You object to the subscription. This is the strongest reason to switch, because there are excellent subscription-free options now — Garmin, Amazfit, and RingConn all unlock full data with no monthly fee. See our guide to the best fitness trackers without a subscription.

You just want to leave Google’s ecosystem. Best Fitbit alternatives covers the landscape, and Garmin vs Fitbit is the most common switch.

The Honest Assessment

Google bought Fitbit in 2021 and has spent the years since folding it into its own product strategy. The 2026 rebrand is the endpoint of that: Fitbit is now a hardware brand inside Google Health, and Google Health is a vehicle for Gemini.

If you are excited about an AI health coach reading your biometrics, this is a genuine step forward and the Health Coach is a more ambitious product than Fitbit Premium ever was. If you bought into Fitbit for the badges, the challenges, and the friendly competition that got you walking in the first place, that product no longer exists and is not coming back.

Both reactions are reasonable. What is not reasonable is paying $99.99 a year without deciding which camp you are in.

Compare current trackers on Amazon, or read our comparison of Fitbit vs Apple Watch if you are considering a platform change.

Before you subscribe, see how the Gemini coach stacks up against the competition in our comparison of AI health coaches across wearables.