The Fitbit Air just launched at the end of May, but its screen-less design and upgrade to the Google Health app attract buyers who understand what it’s all about. Screen-free fitness trackers eliminate distractions on your wrist, passively tracking activities, vitals, sleep, and workouts in the background while you go about your day. While you can start a workout from the Google Health app, the tracker can also automatically detect when you’re exercising or performing a common activity like walking, running, or rowing, and record the data accordingly with a feature called automatic workout detection.
However, some users found that it inaccurately labeled many workouts. This can be frustrating for those who don’t want to rely on their phone every time they’re about to exercise and want to accurately record what they did. Fortunately, the tracker’s first major update promises to fix this problem, with one caveat. The update won’t work if you’re still using the old Fitbit app. Although the required transition to the Google Health app must be completed by July 15, 2026, if you want to get the best experience now with all the latest bug fixes, you need to update your app now.
How to update Fitbit Air
When you sign in to the Google Health app, you should receive a notification once the update is available, saying it has bug fixes and “general improvements.” You may not see it right away, as it unfolds slowly. I’m based in Canada, for example, and I don’t see it in my Google Health Premium app yet. Once it appears, click the banner and let the update run, making sure your tracker is near your phone and that the tracker (and your phone) has sufficient battery life.
If you’re still clinging to the old Fitbit app for dear life, now is the time to make a change. You won’t be able to get these firmware upgrades without it. Even though support doesn’t expire until July 15, 2026, it’s best to upgrade to Google Health now to ensure there are no interruptions in service and tracking, and to benefit from these bug fixes.
This also means that if you are one of the people who chose to download other versions of the Fitbit app on your device, this strategy will no longer work. At least not if you want to benefit from updates. That said, Google Health offers a cleaner and more colorful interface. You also get advanced tracking and tons of AI-powered features and coaching tips when you sign up for Google Health Premium. Without Premium, it’s a fairly simple view with minimal information, similar to the Fitbit app experience without Fitbit Premium.
Autotracking should improve
Android and iOS firmware update includes many improvements and bug fixes. It adds split runs to runner summaries, improves map load times, and fixes incomplete data exported from workouts when using multiple devices or other apps with Google Health. There are improvements to how the app responds if the device loses connection during a live workout, as well as improvements related to nutrition and calorie tracking, missing sleep scores, Ask Coach upgrades for Google Health Premium subscribers, and more.
The most talked about patch, however, corrects inaccuracies thanks to automatic exercise tracking. I find the auto tracking to still be accurate for walking, but others have noted that it can track a run as a general workout instead of recognizing the specific activity. This is a problem for a device like the Fitbit Air, where the screen-free experience is one of its main advantages over a smartwatch if you don’t want distractions. Since you can’t record a workout from the device itself (there’s no screen!), you want reliable automatic tracking.
Otherwise, you have to open the app every time you’re ready to run or get on the treadmill, select an activity, then start and stop it manually. Google says it’s working on adding more exercises to the list for automatic detection. The feature already claims to become smarter and more personalized over time, learning the exercises you commonly do to better recognize them. Hopefully this update makes automatic activity tracking both more personalized and more accurate.
