Late last year, Google announced plans to acquire Fitbit for the princely sum of US$2.1bn to “benefit even more people around the world”. The deal is essentially done, but still requiring sign off from the governing bodies in the field. Aside from the notification of intent, we really haven’t heard or seen any move to merge Fitbit into Google’s hardware platform.
That is until the APK Insight that 9to5Google published showing development towards integration.
As referenced by the 9to5Google team, there is some background to the Fitbit Versa 2 not having Assistant. There were issues with the available APIs not being available to support hardware integration outside of certain pathways.
The code strings and XML file references that brought this potential development forward are:
<string name=”ga_activate_assistant”>Activate Assistant</string>
<string name=”ga_activate_assistant_general_error”>Unable to process request to activate Assistant</string>
<string name=”ga_deactivation_error”>Error deactivating Assistant</string>
- res/layout/a_google_assistant_on_boarding.xml
- res/layout/f_google_assistant_landing.xml
- res/layout/f_google_assistant_teaser.xml
Cast your mind back a couple of months, we may have had an early insight that the integration between Fitbit and Google assistant was coming. Rick Osterloh posted a Fitbit screenshot that on the surface, that’s very innocent. But it did raise the question would the SVP of Devices and Services at Google be using a device that’s not the latest and greatest? It’s extremely unlikely of course, so there is certainly more to come – watch this space.
What do you want to see from Google’s first Fitbit device when it lands?
