Google stops Fitbit from making smartwatches

Last week I posted my review of the Fitbit Sense 2the latest flagship smartwatch from Fitbit. I have previously written about how excited I was about this watch since wearing the original Sense for the past two years. You can imagine my disappointment when I found that it was not as I expected.

For the Sense 2, Fitbit has taken away many of the integral features we saw with the first Sense. There is no Google Assistant support, no 3rd party apps and no wifi support. The latter is especially interesting as the Sense 2 includes the hardware needed for Wi-Fi connectivity. Fitbit just won’t turn it on.

While I was reviewing the Sense 2, I couldn’t help but feel the looming specter of Google. The Big G bought Fitbit in 2019 and officially closed the deal in 2021. That makes the Fitbit Sense 2 and Versa 4 the very first Fitbit smartwatches to be launched under the watchful eye of Google.

With that in mind, it’s hard not to suspect that the reason the Sense 2 is such a weak smartwatch is that Google forced the hand of Fitbit. And it probably all comes down to the Pixel Watch.

When Google formally de Pixel watch at Google I/O 2022, it confirmed it would somehow include Fitbit. Over the past few months, we’ve come to understand that Fitbit’s health tracking features are deeply integrated into the watch. Essentially, Google controls the smart features, while Fitbit handles the health matters.

This essentially makes the Pixel Watch a Fitbit-powered smart watch. Now that Google has Fitbit under its control, the last thing it would want would be for Fitbit to outdo the Pixel Watch with its own premium wearable. This mindset probably led to Google stepping in and forcing Fitbit to dock the Sense 2 and Versa 4’s features so they couldn’t compete directly with the Pixel Watch.

That’s the most likely reason why the Sense 2 doesn’t have Google Assistant, third-party apps, and Wi-Fi — the three features that would make it a viable competitor to the Pixel Watch. The first Sense proves that Fitbit watches are more than capable of having these features, so what other reason could there be for removing them other than Google not wanting to compete with itself?

I don’t want to get too deep into this because we haven’t seen the Pixel Watch yet, but it certainly makes me question Google’s confidence in its own watch. If the company was really confident in the Pixel Watch’s value proposition, it wouldn’t have to tell Fitbit to dock the Sense 2. In other words, instead of innovating and making its own watch better, Google is simply setting the bar artificially lower by Fitbit. That’s pretty lame and doesn’t bode well for the Pixel Watch.

It also drastically changes the future of Fitbit.

The Fitbit Sense 2 may be missing some smartwatch features, but it’s not lacking in the health tracking department. It has all the rugged sensors of the original Sense and even introduces a new feature in continuous electrodermal activity (cEDA) detection, something not found on other major wearables – including the Apple Watch. In other words, Google may have linked a slew of smartwatch benefits to the Sense 2, but it doesn’t seem to be threatened by its health-focused features.

This is a big hint of what’s to come. I suspect Google will push Fitbit further and further away from smartwatches. The most likely overarching plan would be for Google to keep the smartwatch market and Fitbit the health tracking market. This would force Fitbit to release on its own fitness trackers.

Admittedly, this wouldn’t stop Fitbit from releasing a Sense 3. Only, this hypothetical Sense 3 would have fewer reasons for being and look even less like a smartwatch than the Sense 2. To keep it simple, Google would like consumers yearning for any semblance of a smartwatch experience to turn to the Pixel. Watch, while people who only care about health can stick with Fitbit. This makes perfect sense to me from a business and marketing perspective, and the Inspire and Charge lines have a higher survival rate than the Versa or Sense.

As a Fitbit fan who saw incredible promise with what the Sense 2 could have been, I can’t help but be deeply disappointed. Fitbit could have launched a powerhouse: a Google Assistant-powered smartwatch with third-party apps, every health-tracking feature you can think of, and a week of battery life — all for under $300. Again, the original. Fitbit Sense proves that Fitbit could have done this. But now we won’t see it, not because Fitbit was unable to deliver, but because Google seemingly said “no”.