Google today announced a major redesign of its Google Fit health-tracking app and service. And it’s adding some major new features as well.

“We’ve worked with the American Heart Association and the World Health Organization to understand the science behind physical activity and help you get the amount and intensity needed to improve your health,” Google’s Margaret Hollendoner writes. “The new Google Fit is centered around two simple and smart activity goals based on AHA and WHO’s activity recommendations shown to impact health: Move Minutes and Heart Points.”

Google Fit is available as an Android app only, and it’s not included with the platform, so you must first download it from the Google Play Store. It uses your phone or a connected wearable device to track activity like walking, running, biking. and many others. And, yes, it can use location services to save your routes and calculate speed and distance.

In the new version that’s rolling out this week—I’m not seeing it yet on either of my Android phones—Google Fit picks up a nice design refresh that includes a vastly-improved logo. More important, it will now prompt you to move more and sit less, and give you credit for activities that get your heart pumping faster.

The new Google Fit will also let you configure more activities, including gardening, pilates, and rowing or spinning. And it integrates with other fitness apps such as Strava, Runkeeper, Endomondo, and MyFitnessPal so that you can get credit for activities you track elsewhere.

I’m curious to see the changes as the current app is pretty basic. But you can learn more at the Google Fit website.

Tagged with Google Fit