Survey reveals 50% of users don’t like the new Google Health app

It’s been over a week since the Fitbit app transitioned into the new Google Health app, bringing with it a complete design revamp and the possibility of more integrations and a more centralized health experience that ties together Fitbit, Google Fit, and Health Connect.

But, having used the app for a week, my personal opinion of it was very mitigated. Yes, the new design looks more alive and is more interesting, but the user experience has taken a huge step back in the name of AI and Google’s fascination with throwing a wall of text at what could be a simple graph with a small explanation. Not to mention that all the stats and graphs are now unsortable, inconsistently placed inside the app, and downright obfuscated in a few cases. It’s so bad that I said I hate the Google Health app and asked you how you felt about it. Did you love it?

The result is very, very telling.

When asked about the Google Health app, over 1,500 Android Authority readers voted, and slightly more than half of them are very clearly annoyed by the new app. They said it looks good, but they don’t like using it, which exactly echoes my sentiment. Conversely, only 5% said they love how it works, but don’t like the look.

Meanwhile, only 23% of voters think the app is gorgeous and works well — that’s less than a quarter! The rest of the votes are divided between 13% who are indifferent and 9% who don’t have the new app yet.

This sentiment of a bad user experience was echoed in the comments you left on the article. Reader stuartgiles said it takes more time to find the most basic metrics inside the app, which I agree with. Dumping everything in the Health tab and forcing us to edit those to pin charts is simply a bad experience.

I have a Fitbit inspire 3 and since the forced ‘upgrade’ to Google Health it seems that finding most basic metrics in the Health App has become a near impossible quest. I’m still trying to find how I might discover the most basic information previously easily available such as how many steps I might have taken on previous day. IMO this app is just beyond poor.

Reader omrose.farmer said they hate the app so much that they’re considering switching to an Apple Watch now.

I hate EVERYTHING about the new app! Nothing is intuitive, and I can’t easily review my trends […] The new Google Health app is making me look at Apple watches, I am sad to say that Google has ruined a great product and user experience…..I have owned various fitbiits for over 6 years, but it might be time for a change.

Reader craigalanfowler said they were part of the public preview and provided a lot of feedback, none of which was taken into account. They also made an excellent point about the AI coach being helpful if it was something we could call up when needed, not thrown in our faces at all times.

Totally agree with this!! I was also part of the public preview and gave LOTS of feedback that matches this article and the other comments. I don’t think anyone at Google is listening. Look, I use AI a lot in many areas of my life, but for my daily health I really want just to see the data and charts. The rambling AI text is generally unhelpful and repetitive and just makes the app hard to use. Additionally, there are SO many more daily variables driving my health than Google knows about that i just don’t think speculative AI-generated blurbs are particularly helpful. If occasionally I CHOOSE to get into a detailed AI coaching session where I can add a lot of data, context, etc., then I could totally see it adding value. But not the in-your-face way it’s designed now.

There were many other comments with similar sentiments around how Google ruined a good working app, how the new app is harder to understand, and how the AI coach is too verbose, pretending to be your friend, and making comments about every walk, sleep, or minor exercise. The biggest usability complaint revolves around the lack of hourly step graphs, which readers paulives and pixiec1954 noted.

The new app has a few fans, though, like reader fangz2001 who said they appreciate what the AI coach is bringing:

Hard disagree, I love the ai coach. It’s made me plan and focus a lot more as well as subconsciously try and got the targets it sets so I don’t get that telling off.

And reader Patrick-Julian Q Fulgado, who said they actually prefer that the raw data now has a proper explanation and feedback.

I’m going to have to disagree with you here. They’ve had all these numbers and metrics first for the longest time. However they had no actual feedback of what those numbers mean. Having to feedback first is refreshing and more informative than just raw numbers.

I personally see their point, but I also don’t think that the AI Coach should take that much visual space in the app. If it were collapsed and it showed the actual numbers that it was talking about on top of the text as graphs, it would have a much bigger impact in letting people understand how today’s stats are different from yesterday’s, for example, and act on it. So, instead of just telling me my readiness is 50, show me a graph of my readiness over the last 5 days that shows how it dipped from an average of 7o or 80, for example, and then explain how I should take it slow and aim for better sleep hours. That would be my ideal stats plus interpretation balance.

It’s not just here on Android Authority that readers have complained about the redesign. Over on Reddit, there’s an ongoing thread with over 600 comments about how Google Health ruined Fitbit.

Tile reordering is a big sore point: “The fact that you can’t move the tiles around is ridiculous,” said u/The_Circus_Life_206. So is the fact that you can’t really see all your stats on one screen, but have to spend a lot of time scrolling. And the AI coach came up time and again as more than an annoyance. u/Own_Initiative580 said it best:

I hate the smarmy, obsequious, condescending platitudes that the AI bot graciously bestows upon my efforts every day.

Other frustrations mentioned are things I’ve encountered, too, but thought were a me-problem. Turns out they’re an issue for everyone: adding a workout after the fact doesn’t incorporate any data, you can’t export GPS map run data, hourly move reminders are gone, food logging and nutrition tracking are worse (lots of friction, Premium-only features, no support for food logging in grams), and there are tons of issues with bad sleep data or activities stuck on “calculating.”

This new app design has pushed many Redditors on that thread to take the steps to move to other platforms, or at least contemplate it. Garmin is high on the list of exodus destinations.

After poring over all the comments and complaints, it’s clear to me that this isn’t just a simple misstep from Google. Despite the public preview program, the company hasn’t avoided the pitfalls of a bad launch — or at least has stubbornly decided to carry on and ignore feedback. The new Google Health app is objectively worse than the previous Fitbit app in its current state because of all the bugs and missing features, and subjectively harder to use for many of us. Google should really do something quickly to fix this snafu.