We’ve seen for the first time how Google plans to integrate Fitbit’s technology into the next Pixel Watch. Watch faces with the Fitbit logo and health stats have been discovered in the official Wear OS 3 emulator (a tool used by developers to ensure their apps run properly on real devices).
The new faces, detected by 9to5Google, include several simple layouts that simply display the time in various formats. Other faces also include the user’s current step count, heart rate, and local weather conditions, but the most interesting one has the Fitbit logo prominently displayed at the bottom, along with the number of stairs climbed and burning. calories of the day.
These are Google’s ‘Pixel Watch’ watch faces, complete with Fitbit integration [Video] https://t.co/lfdzVWkbvK by @SkylledDev pic.twitter.com/9agXda6bTTDecember 15, 2021
The upper part of the watch face shows a number that can be the minutes of the user’s current active zone – points that are obtained when they perform a physical activity that raises their heart rate.
This number is accompanied by an icon of a person running. On most Fitbit devices, this represents how many times you’ve met your activity goal in the last week, but it doesn’t seem to be the case here.
Face the facts
These details are tempting, but it will likely take several months before we can be sure of the details. We don’t have a release date for the Google Pixel Watch yet, but we expect it to arrive sometime in 2022, coinciding with the launch of Wear OS 3.
We keep our ears open for news, leaks, and rumors, and will keep you posted as soon as we learn more.
Analysis: the end of Fitbit OS?
Google completed its purchase of Fitbit earlier this year, and at the Google IO 2021 event in May, the two companies revealed some interesting details of how they plan to work together in the future.
Google began by explaining that it planned to introduce Fitbit health tracking features into Wear OS, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing in these newly discovered watch faces.
However, we expect more than just a pre-installed Fitbit app and some on-screen stats when Wear OS 3 launches next year. Google’s filing stated that its partnership with Fitbit would result in “a unified platform” with a “new consumer experience,” and this may spell the end of Fitbit’s own operating system as we know it.
Fitbit OS, which is used by the company’s entire current range of fitness trackers and smartwatches, is optimized for maximum battery life and is part of the reason they can run for at least five days between loads.
Any “unified” platform would have to be equally frugal with its demands. A combined Google / Fitbit OS may even require a solution like Android Go, which is a lightweight version of the Android OS with less demanding system requirements. We can only speculate for now, but by 2024, fitness trackers as we know them may be transformed.