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ZDNET Highlights
- The public preview of Fitbit Premium is available on October 28th.
- Adult Android users can try it in the US.
- AI Coach can address sleep, activity and health concerns.
Fitbit is getting an AI-powered facelift, but before its wider rollout, the company is letting qualified users test the redesign fitbit premium,
The new Fitbit Premium emphasizes personal and personalized fitness Wellness Coach Experience. Powered by Gemini, Fitbit Premium tailors exercises, sleep recommendations, diet, and more to the individual user.
The coach bases its recommendations on information provided by the Fitbit user through an initial survey. The Fitbit team encourages people to provide as much detail as possible about their routines, schedules, exercise preferences and more during this intake to receive uber-personalized recommendations.
In a demo, the Fitbit team showed the app providing recommendations for a user who likes to ski and trail runs and lives an active lifestyle, but with a busy work schedule. The app then creates exercises to build strength and endurance for these activities.
The trainer can also create customized exercise routines and ping the user on days when they plan to workout. Additionally, users can discuss their plan with a coach to update on progress and make long-term adjustments. Let’s say a Fitbit Premium user wants a new health challenge: The user can inspire the coach to create a new health challenge. The coach can also design a workout under the user’s above constraints, such as a 20-minute upper body workout using dumbbells or interval training for the user’s first marathon.
Fitbit Premium’s coach doesn’t just give exercise advice. It can also integrate different aspects of the user’s health, such as sleep and overall health, and depict the relationship between the two. Users can prompt the trainer to look for patterns in their sleep, or make connections between biomarkers such as heart rate variability and their activity load. They may also ask about health conditions or symptoms.
Several features – like menstrual health logging, advanced running metrics, and sharing features like messages and badges – won’t be available in the public preview.
Fitbit says the information provided on the app is safe and based on science. It plans to eventually include citations for its responses, although in the preview users will not see the coach citing his or her sources in conversations.
Reddit users under the r/fitbit subreddit say it’s not worth paying for Fitbit Premium. Fitbit devices come with six months of Fitbit Premium, and user says This is the only time he has used it. Three separate Reddit threads on the topic resulted in users strongly agreeing that the paid tier is no different from the standard tier.
The AI-powered redesign and its new role as a sleep, wellness, and fitness coach could bring more value to the premium tier and entice more Fitbit members to pay the $10 monthly subscription fee (or $80 annually).
Adult Fitbit Premium users in the US with an eligible Fitbit or Google Pixel watch can try the redesigned app starting October 28. Android users get the preview first, and Fitbit is expanding access to iOS users soon. Users can revert to an older version of the app from the public preview if they wish.
“This is a brand new experience, so there will be some glitches at first, but you’ll see regular improvements and communications from us as we add, change, or improve features and capabilities,” the Fitbit team writes in a blog post.
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