The redesigned Android Fitbit app is rolling out!

[LizzyFitbit]

Hello everyone!

I would like to announce that the redesigned Fitbit app starts rolling out today! This new app will help you reach your goals, and bring the health and wellness information right on hand.

Check out our latest blog for how to get the most out of the new app. 

Note: Please be patient if you don't see the update right away, as it will take some time to roll out completely.

Happy stepping!

[waynecz]

@TobiasF  - First, as far as the App Store Rating (Android) - It takes a long time to wake up a Corporate Giant and in this case they are surely analyzing the data in.  What I have noticed in the App Ratings is that previous existing Fitbit users now rating the app score them at a 1 or 2 (sometimes a 3) but new users score them at a 4 or 5 still because they have never seen previous versions of the app prior to the Google purchase.  Their reference point is from either nothing or some other company's poor app.  

Secondly, and this explains a lot from the publication T Break Tech on MSN computer news, this was from an article:

"Still, the wider issue is that Fitbit has had to retrofit its app with Google's Material You design language, and that will likely continue to cause usability issues –particularly for long-time Fitbit users."

Therein lies the problem.  They rewrote the Fitbit app, it appears, in Google's proprietary language, and obviously did a very poor job, thinking no one would complain about it if they 'slick' marketed it to everyone.  Ultimately, they released on their blog last week that they were going to bring back some of the items they took away, but now that I know they literally have to write it up from scratch, these items are going to get pushed on the back burner if they haven't already. 

This is NOT a priority for Google as they quite apparently are pushing the Google Pixel watch on the Fitbit products web site so we can see their ultimate goal. I truly believe they are watching the loss of customers versus the normal gain of customers and as long as they are about equal, or at least equal in profitability, they are okay with it, and definitely even more so if some of the new Customers expand the market share of the Google Pixel.   

@jinks Apparently you know about the "Google Material You" design language.  

[Starr69]

@SunsetRunner That was key for me. I just stopped using it and consequently my tracking and logging fell off too. So why bother having it on my wrist where it just pissed me off to look at and I got nothing out of it health benefit wise. Very glad I didn't wait. The fact that they have deleted or edited hundreds of post here was the last straw. And they know it. Last email I got letting me know my thoughts were being removed, I hit the button on a Garmin and replied to Rod the Mod and told him to bite me. 

[RainArtChik]

If they were smart they would remember that Black Friday is a month away. I'm not planning on waiting months for them to tweak things one at a time. I'm already researching, comparing and bookmarking devices that have the features I'm looking for. If the app isn't rolled back by Black Friday then which ever one of those devices is the best price will be my new one. 

[waynecz]

@TobiasF  The maximum heart rate is there in a graph format.  You have to put your finger on the graph and move it back and forth to see the heart rate during the exercise period.  They literally have made finding data much harder in the new app.  

[jinks]

Yup I hear ya. I think my favourite was when I went to my WEEKLY activity page and the top number was my daily average? Why would that be shown on my weekly page and not the daily page? My actual weekly total (the useful number) was further down the page at the end of a sentence in a tiny font. This pattern continues for most areas now. I also don't understand why on the "today" page, it reiterates the word "today" over and over as you scroll down... (sometimes twice in a particular section) - as if it could be anything else on the "today" page. I don't know if it's laziness, or incompetence, or both.

Fitbit have so much data but they clearly have no idea how to present it to the user in a way that makes any sense. I never appreciated the old design that much to be honest, but now it's gone I see it was much better presented than I initially realised. It's often better to give up some design ethos for readability after all.

I did reference Material You but then I have also noticed everyone's screenshots are low-saturation green and purple so is that just their colour scheme? I assumed it was pulling from my (green) wallpaper but I'm not so sure now. May as well be black and white.

[RainArtChik]

No doubt. If they're trying to lose users they're doing a bang up job. 

[SunsetRunner]

Hi Dinamite, like you I was not happy with the changes Fitbit dumped so unceremoniously on us and made the decision to buy a new fitness tracker. I have now been wearing and using a  new Apple Watch Series 9 for two weeks. Very different to my old Fitbit Inspire HR but I am EXTREMELY happy. A lot more costly but it has an amazing range of options and benefits. I can even answer phone calls on it! I can also do ECGs and read O2 saturation. I had been worried about the size of the face, but it’s not a problem at all and is very comfortable to wear and I can read it so easily even in bright sunlight!  I have to charge it every day but charging is very rapid so not a problem. Good luck with whatever choice you make. Cheers, AnnieClaire. 

[pointlessuserna]

It's not really trying to match wallpaper colors, as mine rotates daily and the app stays the same. It certainly isn't respecting my dark theme. It's just an ugly, bland, low information density design that hides most anything practical in favor of... well, pretty much nothing, because it's mostly whitespace.

[GeneralLee01]

Do surf to this blog--> https://community.fitbit.com/t5/The-Pulse-Fitbit-Community-Blog/Your-Feedback-Matters-Updates-coming...

Read this --> Stay fully charged
We heard from you the need to see your watch or tracker’s battery percentage on your Today tab. In addition to seeing your battery under Devices “Connected to Fitbit,” we’ll be adding battery percentage on the Today tab too!

And VOTE !--> on the bottom right of that blog page ! 

[Duckeee]

Nope! I told it just like what I've read. Bland, ugly, and "white". Where's the colors? Poor decision.

[skussm]

This is such a shame! I have been a fitbit user for close to a decade and am now looking to switch to another device purely because you absolutely ruined the app. I just don't like using it anymore - its visually awful, not user friendly and missing crucial features it used to have.

The fact that you have no plans to change the app again shows that you clearly do neither value nor respond to customer feedback.

I'm sorry to be leaving the fitbit community - thanks for ruining a good thing Google... 😞

[drborzy]

Thank you for listening and making changes to the app. Please change the appearance as well. The old format was much easier to read and get stats at a glance. The new version is very difficult to read with the colors and fonts. I also liked the old way of seeing the specifics on each parameter or you could go by week by week.
Thank you!

Sent from my iPhone

[Sjkski]

The new app’s Today screen is terrible. Bland, no colour indications to signal progress, no battery level indicator, almost no ability to customize the order of the tiles, and most importantly, the calories tracker no longer shows you how many calories you have left to eat in the day based on your predicted activity. The second screen for food intake is useless as it simply subtracts the deficit from the current calories expended. This makes the app basically useless to me. 

Did anyone bother to consult with users on these changes?  Judging from the comments it would not seem so. Not a good customer service move. 

[TobiasF]

@waynecz "The maximum heart rate is there in a graph format. "

right, compare this to the old app there you had your max HR readily available on the exercise screen, no searching, no seeking needed, it was there where you could see it

it's not only that they suppress useful information and use a strange, not distinguish color choice for your HR zones - no, they also have a slight problem in plotting a correct scaled graph (any 3rd class student could tell this isn't the correct way of scaling a two dimensional data plot and there is a reason the axes scaling has the same distance between the scale markings) resulting in a complete graphical miss-representation of your HR graph over time (just compare the peaks and valleys on the plot left and right)

it seems these people at Google in charge of "re-designing" this crap actually never used an fitness app to track their exercises nor using a fitness tracker on  a regular bases otherwise you can't really explain this end result of their sub-standard work delivered

funfact #2:  the new app calculates a different average HR as the old app for exactly same exercise and same input data, so you might ask how is this even possible as the input data netherless is the same for the old and the new app as the data comes from the same tracker or? Voila! Google Re-Design Team (aka how to wreck an app in 4 weeks) enters the chatroom: we will show you how to calculate from the same input data two different average values and throw it into your face!

[SunsetRunner]

TobiasF, it’s a tragedy really that a perfectly good app could be wrecked to effectively and totally. I’m loving my new Apple Watch Series 9 but are still things about the old FitBit app I particularly liked and the heart rate graph was one of them. Not going back though! Cheers, AnnieClaire

[Guy_]

Hi @Jocada - probably best to post in "The redesigned Fitbit app is rolling out!" topic in the appropriate iOS or Android app forums along with the other unhappy users where you will see more fully the issues.

Unfortunately it would seem likely you are stuck with this version officially. Though there may be some tweaks over time already mentioned there.

[EB1354]

New App does not update steps without shutting app and the restarting it. Not accurately recording sleep. If you wake up and then go back to sleep it records you woke up at 3am and does not show you went back to sleep. 

[TobiasF]

@SunsetRunner thinking the same!

[TBadbeer]

After looking at the Google Fit app, it is obviously the same design team.  Our Fitbit app now looks just like the Google-written app.  I believe we are simply seeing the first steps to 'merge' the two by driving the Fitbit community insane with an ever getting worse app until we jump to Fit or give Google the finger, and bail to Apple.  The G couldn't beat the competition, so they bought it and are now destroying it...we are witnessing the beginning death throes of what was once the only good competitor to Apple.  RIP.

[Flygirl61]

Yep, that is the color scheme…. Exactly as you described 😳 It’s not you, it’s them 🙄 very unimaginative and frankly preschoolish. lol yes, I made that word up!