Google Fit, while functional hasn’t been quite on par with competitors since its launch. Today they have announced their new Google Fit app designed to bring their fitness tracking up to par.
The all new Google Fit is redesigned to encourage the user to be more active and get fit. Google have worked with the American Heart Association (AHA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to understand the science of physical activity so they could tailor the app correctly.
Google have centred the new Google Fit around two main goals (based on recommendations from the AHA and the WHO), Move Minutes and Heart Points. Move minutes are designed to encourage you to move more and sit less. Each piece of activity during the day earns the user Move Minutes which are of course recorded in the Google Fit app.
Heart Points are recorded for activities that get the heart pumping harder. They are separate from Move Minutes because the higher intensity of the activity results in great heart health benefit. The amount of Heart Points you earn is also based on the intensity of the exercise. Moderate activity such as walking the dog at a brisk pace will earn a point per minute whereas running will earn double this.
All this physical activity has been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease, improve sleep and improve mental well-being. Google Fit will keep track of all of this activity through sensors in your devices such as phone or watch accelerometers and GPS. Google Fit will also integrate into other fitness tracking apps such as Strava, Runkeeper, Endomondo and MyFitnessPal so that every single piece of activity is recorded and counted towards your Move Minute and Heart Point total.
The Google Fit app will have a journal view that will show you all of your activities, achievements and progress towards your goals across all of your apps. This integration with other apps is designed so that Google Fit can keep track of all of your activity.
The new Google Fit will be rolling out to Android phones and Wear OS by Google devices this week. If you want to keep an eye on your fitness or are just interested in checking out the new Google Fit keep an eye out for it landing this week or head over to the Google Fit website to join up.
I know apps do tend to roll-out updates over a few days but I have gone to see if I can try it out and so far no luck. Looking at the comments of those who seem to have gotten it are rating it very low and seem to in general hate what they have done with a lot of the standard features that look to have been either moved and hidden somewhere or totally removed.