Poll result: A lot of you think that Google has ruined Fitbit

Google is having a moment in the sun this week. Apart from one tech fail, the Made by Google 2024 event went off smoothly, and we have a ton of new hardware to fawn over. But not everything the tech giant touches turns to gold, and it’s not just us who feel that way. Many people think Google has ruined the Fitbit brand, and we have a recent poll to prove it.

As background, Android Authority senior writer Andy Walker took an in-depth and considered look at the direction of Fitbit since it was bought by Google. He pointed out that the fortunes of the once-leader in fitness tracking started declining before the 2021 acquisition. Despite hopes for a revival, Google’s focus on integrating Fitbit into its own health ecosystem led to the removal of beloved features and underwhelming hardware releases like the Sense 2 and Versa 4.

Andy balanced this by pointing out that there are some recent signs of promise, but the overall trajectory suggests that Fitbit’s future under Google is uncertain. He concluded that Fitbit isn’t completely “ruined” yet, but it’s heading that way.

We wanted to see if you agreed with him, so we conducted a poll in the article with a simple question: Has Google ruined Fitbit? Over 3,000 of you responded, and the results were conclusive.

Has Google ruined Fitbit?

Almost 66% of you answered yes to our poll question, which means almost two-thirds of you went one step further than Andy and suggested that Google has ruined Fitbit. It was admittedly a binary yes or no question, and no doubt a lot of people shared Andy’s frustration. Those readers might have voted in the affirmative to express that while agreeing that the brand hasn’t been completely ruined quite yet. Still, it’s a damning indictment of Google’s approach.

Readers were able to expand on their views in the comments section of our original article. One person concluded their reasoning with, “I’m going to be buying a watch from somebody else that has decent fitness tracking without a very expensive subscription and ever-declining features.” Another added, “I ditched Fitbit as soon as they got rid of the online dashboard,” which was one of the changes that Andy flagged as driving loyal Fitbit customers away.

The vast majority of comments to the article concur with the poll result. Several of the respondents indicate that they switched to a Garmin fitness tracker and haven’t looked back. But it wasn’t all Google-bashing. One reader suggested that “Fitbit would have been dead long ago without Google’s purchase.” They might be right, although two things can be true at once: Google might have saved the brand from going to the wall, but it still has work to do to restore it to anything like its former glory.