r/FitbitAir

So I’ve been using a Fitbit with Google Health and honestly the app drives me crazy.

I train seven days a week — strength training, MMA, running. And this app treats me like someone who just discovered that walking exists. Three steps? “Wow, great movement!” A 10-minute walk? “Amazing activity!” Bro, that’s not sport, that’s just existing.

And then there’s the whole step count obsession. The 10,000 steps thing is literally a marketing gimmick from 1960s Japan — it has basically no scientific backing. It was made to sell pedometers. I’m going to hit 10,000 steps anyway because I actually work out. I don’t need a notification telling me how proud the app is of me for that.

Here’s the thing though: the app does measure actually useful data — HRV, activity zone minutes, stuff that actually matters for athletes. But for those metrics? Barely any feedback. Nothing. But the moment I hit some arbitrary step count? The app loses its mind.

What really annoys me though: the app never tells you to get up and move when you’ve been sitting too long — it only cheers you on AFTER you’ve done something, even if it was the tiniest thing. Garmin for example actually nudges you proactively. Google Health just waits and then throws confetti at you for breathing.

And the AI Coach? Don’t get me started. I keep telling it: I’m an athlete and don’t need basic tips like “remember to eat after your workout.” But every single session it comes back with “WOW, EXTREME PERFORMANCE” for what is literally just my normal Tuesday training. I genuinely don’t know what it’s going to do when I’m in competition prep — probably explode.

My feature request: give us an athlete or expert mode. Let users decide whether they’re a casual person or an active athlete and adjust everything — notifications, coaching tips, metrics — accordingly. Other apps like Whoop do this already. It’s not rocket science.

Anyone else experiencing this or is it just me?

I've recently gotten an Air and was not impressed with the health app for workouts. So I've built one for myself, which tracks heartbeat data from the air and also sync with health connect do the coach can still see your progress and exercises.

If anyone is interested I'm looking for beta testers! Reply here or DM me! Entirely free and if you don't like it just delete it, it stores all data locally never sends anything to any server as I don't have any.

EDIT: Android only for now as I have a pixel phone.

Sleep is mostly accurate. It does not think I fall asleep as soon as I lay down (I had that problem with a previous tracker). If I get up in the middle of the night that is reflected in the sleep tracking. The vibrating alarm is strong enough to wake me up. I use the smart wake feature. It also tracked a 25 minute nap accurately which I thought was funny because I fell asleep on accident and didn’t really need it recorded, but it did!

I’ve read that for some people their workouts will get paused somehow halfway through, but I didn’t experience that. It records my entire workouts and records my heart rate the entire time.

It struggles to log a treadmill workout. It gets the pace all wrong. I had to reiterate to the “coach” a couple times that I was on a treadmill and what my mph pace was, otherwise it said I was going way slower than I actually was. I don’t know if it thought I was walking outside and it was trying to use GPS to calculate a distance, or my arm movements didn’t match my actual speed? I was moving my arms, not holding on to the treadmill. Also it didn’t log the majority of the “active zone” minutes that it should have. Apparently this is a known thing that fitness trackers can’t accurately log a treadmill?
The second time I logged a treadmill workout I just waited until I was done and then told the “coach” my start and end times and how many miles. That seemed to be more accurate. Hopefully I can figure out a good way to log the treadmill without using the Premium AI.

Starting last night, Google Health can bring meditation minutes over from Apple Health! I’m so happy; it was a pain trying to get them logged manually.

Some metrics (like resilience, readiness, and skin temperature variation for example) take several days to start displaying as it gathers enough data.

“Coach” has a hard time talking about medications. 😆 Even though, during a chat, I emphasized that a medication was prescribed to me by my doctor, I kept getting the “Something on my end didn’t meet our safety guidelines. Try asking something else” message. That just made me laugh.

No issues syncing. It automatically syncs every time you view the app. It recommends that you keep the app open in the background all the time.

No issues charging. Charged from 20% to 100% in under an hour. I’m estimating one charge will last about 6-8 days for me (if I don’t want it to drop below 20%)

Very comfortable to wear. My one gripe with the band is sometimes the end of it will snag on something and undo the velcro. Specifically while I’m sleeping, it almost gets taken off by getting caught on the sheets.

Overall I give it 8/10, if I can figure out how to log a treadmill workout, I’ll give it 9/10.

I want to share my experience trying to replace the active band (silicone) for my Fitbit Air because the metal clasp completely detached from the silicone.

I bought the device through Amazon because the Google Store doesn't ship to Puerto Rico. After going back and forth (5 Calls & 2 Case IDs) and receiving conflicting messages, they are now telling me that I have to send in the entire device, which is working perfectly, just to process a replacement for the active band (silicone).

Has anyone else had this problem or found a better solution?

Noticed something this morning and chatted with “coach”, thought others will find it useful.

This morning I started a “Weights” workout, and did my usual 15 minute incline treadmill walk to warmup. When I ended the workout after 1.5 hours it logged my heart rate and everything else throughout the time, but only had me at 150 steps. Chatting with coach and it said that during “weight” workouts it essentially doesn’t log steps as it doesn’t want to miscount. And for next time to just start it as a treadmill workout as it will log the steps in addition to everything else. Huge flaw IMO, but it is a workaround for now, hope it gets fixed.

Also shoutout to whoever it was that suggested creating a back tap shortcut on iPhone to switch between apps so the workout doesn’t accidentally pause! This worked for me at least today.

I have been using whoop for last four months. Recently I preordered fitbit air to try it and thinking to switch after my whoop subscription.

What I love about fitbit air:
- it’s form factor. I am using it with the active band and it significantly increased my comfort level.
- battery life
- AI is better than whoop. Just the outputs, not the way it’s being shown in the app. I pushed it in certain levels (being a CS phd) and it didn’t leave the context.

What I dislike about fitbit air:
- Lack of Strain feature. Whoops daily strain target motivates me to push and touch the recommended range. I understand the they have cardio load. But that’s do not give daily targets.
- lack of gamification. Whoop age always motivates me to reduce it.
- the automatic workout detection sucks. I played soccer last day. Whoop detected the activity, while Fitbit didn’t
-some how fitbit does not detect my naps!
- The text-heavy AI. It’s just annoying. They should redesign the Today page. It’s just too hard to navigate all activities in one tab. I like whoop’s interface better.
- there’s should be an option to turn off the AI to keep the homepage clean. They could gave just move the AI to a separate section.

Final take: The app needs a lot of reworking. Maybe the app needs time and I really appreciate how devs put the improvement list and working on it. Whoop is still way ahead of it. However, I still won’t renew it due to it’s insane subscription cost. I am planning to return the device and observe it’s app development & might repurchase after my whoop subscription expires.

Just a reminder that if you don't like the non stop platitudes, you can tell coach' how you want them to behave. Here is what I used, I'd love to hear yours.

I'd prefer a no nonsense kind of coach that lays out the facts both good and bad, encourages where I need to improve, scolds and/or reminds me of the costs if I fail. I don't need to feel like all my decisions are smart. And feel free to recommend things I might can do to improve over time.

Debating getting an Air. Main sport is climbing (bouldering, sport climbing), I can see the activity profile for climbing in the Google Health app (downloaded it to have a look) but ideally it would auto detect the exercise and categorise correctly. Anyone tried?