Fitbit Owners Get Three Interesting New Features
Fitbit Charge 6
Reports of the imminent death of Fitbit may be misplaced, as Fitbit owners just got three new interesting features.
The trio of features are part of Fitbit's Labs project, and they use Google Gemini AI to enhance the heath-related experience for Fitbit owners.
Fitbit announced the upgrades on the Fitbit Community blog. And while one requires joining a waitlist, it sounds like these experimental extras could be worth checking out.
They are dubbed the Medical Record Navigator, Symptom Checker and Unusual Trends. Let's dig in.
Symptom Checker is the AI-enhanced version of what a doctor will often advise you not to do — searching the web for symptoms.
Fitbit says it will ask a few follow-up questions after you start off describing your symptoms, to try to home in on some possible causes. This should, with any luck, avoid the web search effect where folks manage to convince themselves their slightest ailment may be down to a terminal condition.
The goal is to help you work out if it's something that actually requires more research, or the help of a medical professional.
Next up is Unusual Trends, which could potentially significantly increase the real-world smarts and usefulness of today's ordinary fitness trackers.
Fitbit says this is used to recognize changes in stats you probably wouldn't ordinarily notice, even if you see them in a graph on the Fitbit app. That might be a change in your breathing rate, for example.
Unusual Trends will inform you of the fact, while apparently not going as far as to suggest what might be the cause.
I've often noticed correlations in my heart rate behaviour and HRV during and around bouts of illness, so this feature could act as a form of proof of reinforcement if you are feeling a little 'off' at any point.
It's also an example of one of the more difficult areas of consumer wearable tech — not so much harvesting accurate stat data, but finding a way to make it useful for the average person.
The final new Fitbit Labs feature is the one with a waitlist attached. And while it could prove super-useful, it arguably also has the least mainstream appeal.
Medical Record Navigator lets you upload results and reports you've received from medical professionals, and it will analyze the data to provide digestible summaries of what they mean. Fitbit suggests you'll use this one to 'quickly understand complex medical terms and get a better understanding of your results.'
To get access to these features, you need to opt in to Fitbit Labs under the You tab of the app and enable each Labs feature. Fitbit Labs is available to U.S. users, and Fitbit says some will require a Premium subscription.
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