Fitbit Premium and Nest Aware now in Google One. Yay…?
Google today announced both Fitbit Premium and Nest Aware are included in Google One Premium plan in the United Kingdom. For existing Fitbit Premium members, it definitely is a good news because they can get loads of storage for free.
But for Google One subscribers, it really does not mean anything.
Simply put, the free version of Fitbit offers so many features already that most people do not need to spend £7.99 every month to get the detailed health insights, if any.
I bought a Pixel Watch 2 (LTE) last November as an even more mobile companion to my Pixel 6 Pro on my wrist and it came with a free six-month trial of Fitbit Premium. Although I am overall happy with the experience, I will probably cancel the membership when the trial ends.
Premium, additional hardware needed
When Google One subscribers want to get the most out of Fitbit Premium, they definitely have to buy either a smartwatch from Google or a fitness tracker from Fitbit to accurately monitor their health and performance.
Of course they can rely on their phones to count steps but the data are wildly inaccurate and they would not be able to measure sleep quality, oxygen saturation and heart rate. These metrics are significant to determine physical wellbeing.
That already forms a barrier for entry given Google and Fitbit only account for 32% of market share. A vast majority of Google One subscribers do not have the health tracking device needed to benefit from the additional inclusions. Adding Fitbit Premium and Nest Aware would not be likely to drive them into buying their products.
The erroneous, sometimes missing data
Even if they have a Pixel Watch or Fitbit Sense, that does not necessarily mean a sudden and substantial increase in quality of life because the data are rather unreliable.
In the past two months, I have noticed my Pixel Watch 2 failing to track the moment I go to bed and only starting to count my bedtime hours into my rest. A few days I even woke up to see the watch recording zero minute of sleeping activity.
As a university student, I know my sleep quality is poor compared to what it should be. Yet I want to understand by how much and unfortunately it is not something I can conclude with confidence.
The only saving grace is that step counting and location tracking appear to be accurate enough. Notifications also arrive as soon as my phone receives one but these are not related to Fitbit but rather major improvement Google did to its smartwatch lineup.
Free tier is good enough for most people
Okay, lets assume Google quashes all tracking bugs with software updates and you ask: “Should I subscribe to Fitbit Premium?” My answer is still a resounding no when you consider the very few additional features you get.
As of March 2023, Fitbit says the Premium plan offers daily readiness score, detailed workout and mindfulness instructions, more in-depth sleep and stress analysis, sleep profile, wellness report and recipes to make healthy food.
On the surface they sound like great information to better understand my physical health, until I realised the app only logs readiness and stress scores for just ten days a month later.
Daily readiness and stress management scores require the user to wear the device for 14 hours every day so the numbers do not show up in the app until late in the afternoon. I also do not feel comfortable wearing the watch for such a long period of time and I occasionally take it off my wrist so I do not get the numbers at all on most days.
Fitbit used to place some health metrics behind a paywall but they have thankfully become free to access since March 14 last year. I also do not see summarising my sleep pattern and stress level into arbitrary numbers justify the £7.99 asking price, neither are recipes I can easily search online.
The more I look into the Premium features, the less appealing membership appears to me. That makes sense when competitors like Garmin, Fossil and Samsung do not ask users to pay to access these information either.
As for Nest Aware subscribers spending six pounds a month, I think paying just a little bit more to enjoy two terabytes of cloud storage is quite a sweet deal. Obviously those who are subscribing to at least two services simultaneously benefit most.
Maybe a mid-tier Google One
The wide gap between Google One’s Standard and Premium plan actually present a good future business strategy for the Mountain View-based tech company to create more choices of subscription.
What if we have a £4.99/mo Advanced subscription which provides 500GB storage, Fitbit Premium and Nest Aware? That is a easier pill to swallow and Google can consider adding new Fitbit Premium features only into Google One Premium plan, which can include Nest Aware Plus instead.
If that sounds similar, that is because it is the same as Discord creating legacy Nitro in 2019 (now known as Nitro Classic) and Nitro Basic in 2022. One bonus tip: It is still possible to subscribe to Classic despite Discord taking it off the settings menu.
Is that exactly what Google plans to do and today’s announcement is merely the beginning to overhaul Google One? Only their employees know if a slightly less expensive tier is on the horizon.
