Fitbit and Google a partnership to watch

● When Fitbit recently released its new range of fitness bands and smartwatches in South Africa, all eyes were on the impact of the brand’s 2021 buyout by Google parent Alphabet for $2.1bn (about R38bn).

The 18 months since the acquisition has given Alphabet enough time to stamp its data-hungry strategy on Fitbit, and it has reassured users it will not mine this data to combine with its trove of online search data. However, the new devices show Fitbit becoming a more data-rich wellness ecosystem rather than merely a fitness tracker, with numerous new metrics and analysis options.

The flagship of the range, the Fitbit Sense 2, takes the innovation of its predecessor several steps forward. The first Sense introduced electrodermal activity (EDA) as a health metric. It measures the conduction of electrical pulses in the skin to reveal levels of stress, based on the idea that skin conduction is caused by changes in the sweat glands, which are an indication of stress.

The Sense 2 evolves this technology into a body-response sensor called cEDA (“c” for “continuous”) that continually monitors stress levels and alerts the user to do something about it when the numbers go through the roof.

A redesigned biosensor hub on the back of the watch houses two electrodes with better skin contact than before, to emit a low-level electrical current, with the feedback turned into measurements.

In combination with resting heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV) — the variation in the time interval between heartbeats — the Sense produces a momentary stress detection algorithm designed to detect moments of potential stress throughout the day. This alerts users to their stress levels as well as building up a history that allows one to discern one’s stress-level patterns. It also offers stress intervention: on-wrist and in-app ways to help users manage stress in the moment. Along with stress tracking, the Sense 2 tracks heart health with sensors that detect signs of atrial fibrillation through an ECG app, and combines that with heart rate variability and skin temperature to give a big picture of heart health.

The Sense has also evolved into arguably the leading wearable sleep-monitoring tool, in combination with extensive features to analyse sleep patterns via the Fitbit Premium service. This is reserved for paying subscribers, though the data is automatically collected regardless of subscription. On the other hand, this is less of an issue for users than what may happen to their data once Google gets its virtual claws into it.

David Amehame, Dubai-based regional sales manager of Fitbit for the Middle East and Africa at Google, said users did not have to fear for their privacy. “Data privacy and data integrity are at the heart of everything we do,” he said during a visit to South Africa. “We want to create a better Google for everyone, help people in their health, in their knowledge, in their success, in their happiness. But not at any cost.

“The data privacy and data integrity topic has also been at the heart of the acquisition taking place or not.”

Amehame said the potential of the combined resources of the two companies would be achieved in time.

“It’s still at an early stage. We’re looking at the power of these two companies. Fitbit, on one side, has been a pioneer in creating the wearable category, with a wealth of health and fitness knowledge through the data that has been collected and analysed, and this is what is being used for developing new products and new features. On the other side, we’ve got Google, one of the most innovative companies in the world, with a wealth of knowledge in terms of data.

“So bringing these two together is creating a very powerful organisation to bring new products and new solutions to help people understand more of themselves and drive their own objectives.”