Fitbit Coach will become part of Fitbit Premium

[FitbitCommunity]

To the Fitbit Coach community,

Fitbit Coach is now becoming part of Fitbit Premium. Fitbit remains committed to providing all the tools you need to live a healthier, more active lifestyle. To give you more choices for working out as well as the range of additional features check out Fitbit Premium. With the Fitbit Coach workout content now in the Fitbit app, and to allow you to use one app going forward, we’ll shut down the Coach mobile app, Coach website and Coach app on Fitbit smartwatches on July 30, 2021. 

If you’re currently paying for a Coach membership, here’s what you can expect:

• Annual members— you’ll soon receive a prorated refund of the remainder of your Coach membership

• Monthly members— you won’t incur any further monthly membership charges

As an exclusive offer to support Coach members through this transition, if you’re not already a Fitbit Premium member, you can try Fitbit Premium for a full year at no additional cost if you sign up by July 30, 2021. 

To start your Premium trial, make sure you download the Fitbit app and log into your account before you get started (you must use the same email address for Fitbit Coach and the Fitbit app to take advantage of this offer). Then, open the Coach app on your phone and tap the message at the top of the screen to start your Premium trial.

Have questions? Click here for more information.

Thank you for being a loyal Coach member, and we look forward to continuing to support your health and fitness goals. 

[Bubblyfedex]

After much scrolling, I was able to locate some of my favorite runs in premium. The quality is awful. There are no prompts, instructions, or timers displayed on the screen. In the name of inclusiveness, please reconsider this decision. The hard-of-hearing and deaf deserve a quality workout program too. 

[Cosca]

The interface of the workout part in the main fitbit app is in my opinion terrible... It does not motivate me to workout. At least with the coach app I could follow a program and get recommended workouts. Casting was also a useful feature.

If you would just integrate coach into the main app that would have been fine, but now you're just replacing it with a worse version. 

I paid fitbit premium mainly because access to the coach app was also included. Seriously reconsidering extending my subscription if the complaints people have are not addressed.

[graceyuewu]

Second this! Totally agree! 

[graceyuewu]

I'm 100% with all the comments here about the personal workout. I too, paid for the premium for years purely for this feature. I have been heavily relying on the personalized workout, so I can just start workout when I open the app. Now I have to scroll through ton of the contents that are not ueful to me, just to find one workout I maybe want to try, and still may end up hating it. I haven't found any other premium feature to be very attractive to be honest. It is a huge disappointment that you get rid of this feature, I seriouly hope you'd consider the feedback and bring the personalized workouts back.

[spider08]

There's not a chance I pay for Fitbit Premium just to get a collection of video workouts. Literally every workout app (many cheaper or free) is a collection of video workouts, what I was willing to pay for was the personalized workouts from Coach. For everyone else looking for a better option - FitOn doesn't personalize each workout, but they did have an option to create a workout plan that worked pretty well for me.

[kimcoxfisher]

I just cancelled my premium but unable to get a refund-just another disappointment to add to this whole situation.  I will be escalating my complaint for a refund and I believe there is merit to my complaint.  Best wishes to you all trying to deal with the aftermath of their discontinuance of Coach

[Redmond77]

I read an article yesterday researching other workout options to replace the adaptive coach training and fitbit coach was rated as one of the top three fitness apps for 2021. Why is it leaving?

[jkbrzt]

"Fitbit Coach will become part of Fitbit Premium" — what a misleading euphemism and a lame attempt at a positive spin on "We’re killing Fitbit Coach and re-using some of its content as static videos uploaded to Fitbit Premium". A huge shame, it was a great service. 😢

[Sfghiggins]

Fitbit coach already got me fitbit premium. "Streamlining" to one app doesn't make sense if we are losing features that we used to have. I've had a fitbit for years now and never bothered getting premium. When I discovered fitbit coach and the personalised guided programs I decided to go premium. The fact I got all the additional benefits was just a cool bonus. The fact that it seems like this is the feature that we are going to lose means you are going to lose my subscription.

[CollinM]

---

@spider08 wrote:

There's not a chance I pay for Fitbit Premium just to get a collection of video workouts. Literally every workout app (many cheaper or free) is a collection of video workouts, what I was willing to pay for was the personalized workouts from Coach. For everyone else looking for a better option - FitOn doesn't personalize each workout, but they did have an option to create a workout plan that worked pretty well for me.

---

I tried it today and it's the best yet with the instructions in the video (which you can cast on your ChromeCast). It doesn't personalise the exercises but the information it gives is good enough to select the exercises you need. Plus it can create a training schedule for you and so far I'm happy with it.

Coach was at the moment the only thing keeping me with FitBit. This is another example of how they do not listen to their customer base and just decide things. I'll be selecting a different manufacturer for my next activity tracker when my current Fitbit stops working.

[Dezzzzzz]

 Inappropriate completely Inappropriate... nobody wants this but fitbit. It doesn't help your users it takes away a unique workout thats actually tailored itself to your progress and what could motivate you to move forward without hurting you or not actually helping you. Fitbit is seeming less and less like something that's actually useful, wish I had looked more into these forums first. I love coach and need the motivation of the coach to move forward and keep trying plus it helps with form.

[mjof]

I am also very disappointed that Coach workout/programs are discontinued and hope Fitbit/Google reconsider this decision. It takes too long to find a suitable daily Premium workout/guided program and they can be irritating with all that hyped up "encouragement" whereas Coach got the job done in an efficient manner and avoided boredom with the daily routine.

[CollinM]

They just said they're not going to add the guided programs to premium. The icing on the cake in their response is the following text:

We're always striving to enhance Fitbit products and services, and your input is a big part of that process. We truly thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with us.

---

What Fitbit did is not improving their products and services. Everything I so far have heard about how Premium works it's one hell of a downgrade what was offered through Coach. Due to these standard responses and not actually addressing the concerns/issues we have with this change I won't be getting premium. I also will no longer be a Fitbit customer as this incident was the final straw in a string of bad experiences with Fitbit.

[StephanieNC]

The Freestyle Yoga sessions are truly unique. The yoga workouts in FitBit Premium do not compare. I understand discontinuing the customized sessions - that's complicated. But couldn't the freestyle sessions be added to FitBit Premium?  

If adding these older freestyle sessions to FitBit Premium is not viable, could you make them available to download/purchase to the existing members for a limited time. I would pay for my own copy of my favorite freestyle yoga workouts!

[StephanieNC]

Perhaps we can convince FitBit to at least move the freestyle sessions to the new FitBit Coach app.

[StephanieNC]

Tara has a website and offers classes (search her name), but they do not appear as varied or targeted as the Freestyle sessions on FitBit.  I keep hoping they will let us download the Freestyle sessions or move them to the new FitBit Coach. 

[dahliared]

I'm also disappointed that this means that all of the rowing workouts will be unavailable (Or, at least, I can't find them on Premium at all). I mainly use the Coach app for running and rowing, so now the premium service will be useless to me. The only thing keeping me using a FitBit was the Coach app--I'll just switch to a different smartwatch. 

[Yige]

Sure. They just collect garbage from youtube and try to sell it to us. Just look at the nightmare: Premium Workouts -> Dumbbell Workouts -> Shapely Shoulders & Strong Arms Workout (24 min) .. video is made from old smartphone, you cannot understand what they talk about. It is very very poor quality.

[maksimh]

Just out of curiosity — could you please explain the rationale behind the decision to abandon the feature people like me were really eager to pay for. Today I had switched to Premium because my Coach subscription is expiring in a couple of days only to find that the key feature — guided workout programs — is gone.
Mindfulness and chewing habits are not the features I am willing to pay for.

Hope that you would change the decision — it was very convenient to have a heart-monitor and a app-coach from one vendor. However, I would better drop heart-monitoring the workouts and opt for another guided workout service (thanks god there are alternatives).

[SunsetRunner]

I’m in the same boat. I feel

like Fitbit is more concerned about making a couple of bucks from the people that made them a business. The only reason I bought the Fitbit Sense is because I wanted to be able to keep track of my stress managment and I can’t even utilize the service unless I pay $10 a month to the Premium program that I truly felt no reason to subscribe to. I could have saved $100 and went with the fitbit charge 4 had I known they would be doing this.