I want Google would open up Fitbit to different smartwatches

Each time a brand new Put on OS watch is introduced, I’m intrigued. I’ve been utilizing the platform for nearly a decade now, and I prefer to attempt new watches to see what they provide by way of options, consolation, battery life, and extra. The OnePlus Watch 2, for instance, actually caught my eye with its glorious twin OS and dual-processor-enabled battery life.

However there’s one factor that holds me again from switching to OnePlus’s newest or Samsung’s glorious Galaxy Watch 6 collection, and that’s Fitbit. See, I’ve been utilizing Fitbit trackers for greater than a decade now. All my stats are in there, all my patterns, my ups and downs, and my greatest and worst days. I’m used to the platform, I understand how to interpret any day’s knowledge as a result of I do know what my historic knowledge is like. So I persist with my Pixel Watch 2, as a result of it presents me the most effective of Fitbit inside a Put on OS watch. However what if — hear me out — Fitbit wasn’t a Pixel Watch unique anymore?

I’d love to have the ability to use Fitbit on different Put on OS smartwatches, and Google might go about it in two methods:

• Both make the Fitbit app downloadable on any Put on OS watch, after which behave like a system app as soon as put in, with all of the battery-friendly and background privileges.
• Or open up Fitbit’s API so third-party watchmakers like OnePlus, TicWatch, and others now not must develop their very own, semi-baked well being and health options for his or her smartwatches.

As a result of, actually, customers like me don’t want extra well being platforms that hardly speak to one another. Sure, I do know Well being Join exists, however each well being service supplier can nonetheless prohibit what will get exported from or imported into their app, which limits the service’s utility. For instance, I can’t sync my menstruation from Oura to Fitbit or vice versa, and that’s essential historic knowledge to me and my physique that I can’t go away behind if I migrate.

When issues are this complicated — and let’s not overlook that Google Match exists, too — I can’t persuade myself to depend on Well being Hook up with maintain my stats in sync throughout a number of providers. Nor can I depend on it if I select to modify platforms yearly or two. So I’d slightly persist with the Pixel Watch 2 and its Fitbit stats as an alternative of leaping between totally different well being platforms.

This conviction is strengthened each time I or my Android Authority colleagues take a look at different well being platforms. OnePlus’ watch can monitor lots of knowledge, however the OHealth app is fairly primary in comparison with the Fitbit app. Samsung Well being, however, nonetheless falls behind Fitbit’s sleep monitoring and algorithms. And let’s not discuss different options from Mobvoi, Xiaomi, and extra.

In addition to Garmin’s and Apple’s apps, that are solely appropriate with their respective watches, I’ve but to come back throughout a well being platform I’d slightly use greater than Fitbit.

Google is at the moment pushing smartwatch makers in the direction of well being platform fragmentation as an alternative of unity. It owns Fitbit and it might simply determine to make Fitbit the de-facto well being monitoring software program on Android.

As a substitute, any smartwatch maker who needs to ship a brand new Put on OS watch has an enormous barrier to clear. They must construct a companion app from scratch and a well being service from scratch. That’s not straightforward.

Gathering knowledge for various train sorts, learning sleep phases, and understanding coronary heart fee zones — all of that’s not a given for a {hardware} firm. OnePlus needed to set up three well being labs, make use of greater than 100 folks, arrange college partnerships, and construct some in-house algorithms to supply train and well being monitoring in its OHealth app. It’s no marvel that Fossil exited the smartwatch enterprise when that is the barrier to entry!

If Google provided Fitbit’s algorithm and experience out of the field with Put on OS, it might cut back the funding wanted for any watchmaker to construct a brand new watch. It might additionally accumulate much more consumer knowledge than if it saved its algorithms unique to the Pixel Watch line-up. And knowledge, as everyone knows, is cash.

And for anybody questioning about exclusivity and competitors, I say this: If Samsung making Android telephones just isn’t a risk to Pixel telephones, I don’t see why making Fitbit obtainable on a Galaxy Watch 6 could be a risk to the Pixel Watch.

Look, I don’t know if that is ever going to occur, nevertheless it simply is sensible to me. So I’m throwing this want on the market now and hoping it materializes in some unspecified time in the future. Then I’ll say, “Ah, see, I informed you Google ought to try this!”

Till then, that is me hoping I can, in some unspecified time in the future sooner or later, change to a OnePlus Watch or Galaxy Watch with out dropping entry to my Fitbit knowledge. And with out double-wristing with a Fitbit tracker however.