Health sensors on Google wearables are breaking down at an awkward moment

Google launched the Fitbit Air yesterday, giving its wearable lineup a fresh screenless tracker and a new entry point into its revamped health platform. But the company is also getting some less welcome feedback from another corner of its wearable ecosystem, as some Pixel Watch owners say a recent update has broken SpO2 and skin temperature tracking on their current devices.

The issue was raised in a Reddit thread on r/PixelWatch, where a Pixel Watch 3 owner said a recent Fitbit update had reset permissions for skin temperature and SpO2 tracking. The user said they couldn’t simply turn the permissions back on, as the permissions page showed that no app was requesting them. A few other commenters reported similar problems in the thread.

Google’s PixelCommunity account responded in the thread, acknowledging “We regret the disruption to your health tracking experience caused by these permission resets.” It added that “work is underway to restore access to SpO2 and skin temperature tracking features.”

A separate r/fitbit thread suggests the issue isn’t limited to the Pixel Watch 3. In that post, a Pixel Watch 4 owner said the same sensors had stopped appearing in the Pixel Watch and Fitbit apps for more than a week. FitbitHelpCommunity later replied with almost the same message, again pointing to the same firmware update and saying work is underway to restore access.

We don’t know how widespread this issue is, and the user in the Fitbit thread appears to have rectified it by restarting their device. However, the official replies make clear that Google and Fitbit are aware of a real permissions-related issue tied to the recent update, which isn’t ideal timing given that Google is trying to convince more people to buy into its health-tracking ecosystem.