A new version of Google Health is deployed as version 5.11 on Android and iOS. This new version brings many changes, such as Health Guardian features for the Fitbit Air. It also significantly improves automatic activity tracking, offers more options for blood sugar tracking, and improves sleep tracking.
Even though we’re just upgrading from Google Health v5.10 to v5.11, this is a significant update. Google had already told us about this update when announcing the Fitbit Edge.
Fitbit Air gets Health Guardian
The new Health Guardian, which debuted on the Pixel Watch 5, is now here for the Fitbit Air, assuming you’re a Google Health Premium subscriber. These are unfortunately not free features on the Fitbit Air.
The two features Google mentioned as coming are Blood Pressure Trends and Insulin Resistance Trends. These are tracked over time, so you get frequent reports on them, and they’re automatically tracked if you wear your Air for consecutive days. For blood pressure trends, you will need to wear it for 5 consecutive days, while insulin resistance trends will take 7 or more consecutive days. And nights.
Improved automatic activity tracking
This is perhaps the biggest improvement Google could have made to the Fitbit Air. I was planning on doing a months-long review, and it wasn’t going to be that positive. The Fitbit Air seemed worse and slower at automatically tracking my workouts, even though they were 2 hours long. The device was also incredibly slow to process any workout.
Google says it’s rolling out updates to the Fitbit Air, Pixel Watch 3, 4 and 5 that make these devices smarter, more accurate and reliable.
To make these improvements, these devices can now automatically track up to 100 different activities, up from around 10. They can also use more context to take into account your routines, historical data, and manual edits, to be 2x more accurate.
- More activities follow: We’ve increased the number of activities your Fitbit or Pixel Watch tracker can detect from 10 to 100, including strength training, swimming, racquet sports, and team sports.
- Use more context: With contextual reasoning, we now take into account more context (including your workout routines, historical data, and manual edits) to provide detections that are nearly 2x more accurate and reduce missed workouts by more than half.
- Automatically records workouts: Workouts that meet your minimum duration threshold (15 minutes by default) with a sustained high heart rate are automatically recorded and a summary sent to the Google Health app, usually within 30 minutes.
- Learns your models: When you confirm or modify an activity, you enhance a feature that learns your unique patterns and uses them to refine its predictions.
More Options for Glucose Tracking
For those using Google Health for blood sugar tracking, Google says it has improved the following:
- Name updated: Blood sugar is now referred to as Glucose throughout the app. Check for updates to your tables and charts.
- Personalized duration goals: You can now set specific duration goals for blood glucose data from connected continuous glucose monitors. To set a goal, go to the Metabolic section of the Health tab, tap Glucose, open Settings and select Set goal.
- Faster sync with Lingo by Abbott (US only): You can now connect Lingo by Abbott directly to the Google Health app so your blood glucose data syncs faster and appears in the Google Health app within 30 minutes of a reading. If you have a Google Health Premium subscription, Google Health Coach³ can also answer questions about your blood sugar trends. To sign in, tap your profile icon in the Google Health app and select Partner apps.
Improved sleep tracking
And finally, in the area of sleep, Google has improved the accuracy of wake detection and will allow you to more easily modify your naps.
- More precise wake detection: We’ve improved our sleep tracking to better account for your step data so we can more accurately track brief awakenings, like getting up to use the bathroom.
- Easier Nap Edit: You always control your sleep data. If ever a nap appears that doesn’t fit into your day, you can now easily delete it directly from your nap map.
Again, this Google Health 5.11 update is now rolling out to Android and iOS.
Google Health apps: Google Play | App store
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