It looks like Google Fit is unfit for usage… or at least that’s what happening with Google retiring the APIs. The Google Fit APIs were introduced to the Android ecosystem back in 2017 as the platform’s answer to Apple’s HealthKit. However, it seems like Google isn’t going to develop or support the Google Fit APIs anymore.
In a blog post on the Android Developers Blog, Google indicates that it will not be accepting new sign ups for the Google Fit APIs any longer. The move apparently comes as Google begins to transition to Android Health. Currently, Android Health points to Health Connect, another of Google’s health APIs that was introduced in Android 13 and natively integrated in Android 14. The platform seems to remove any form of off device storage of the collected data but instead opts for an on-device model. Google is giving developers until June 30, 2025 to migrate to Android Health.
The move comes after Google’s purchase of fitness tracking company, Fitbit, in 2021. Just recently, Google has begun shutting down and consolidating a number of Google and Fitbit’s apps and APIs. Fitbit users will have realised that Google has been pushing them to migrate over to a Google account. In fact, some features like sleep tracking have been limited until the migration is done. More recently, Google announced to Fitibit users that Fitbit Pay will be replaced by Google Wallet. More jarringly, Google’s own Pixel Watch lacked the Google Fit app and favoured the Fitbit app instead.
The retirement of Google Fit’s APIs in favour of Android Health/Health Connect may also be a result of the Fitbit purchase as it was stipulated that Google could not access any data collected by Fitbit as a part of the purchase. However, little information has been shared about how Google is using the data since the acquistion was completed.
The larger question remains how will apps and devices that leverage the Google Fit APIs fair after the migration. Keep in mind that a number of Wear OS devices use these APIs for fitness tracking and use the Google Fit App as their main interface. With companies like FOSSIL pulling out of the Wearables market with no comitment to maintain the software on the current devices, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see issues pop up with the fitness tracking on these devices.
What’s more, other Wear OS devices will also need to be updated to migrate to Health Connect. With newer devices like the OPPO Watch X, companies have already created their own apps like OHealth for OPPO and Samsung Wear for Samsung. It’s unclear if these apps will need to migrate over to Android Health or if they are already using the new APIs. However, Google has also highlighted that apps like Lifesum (previously NOOM), Peloton and Oura have already migrated to Android Health. This would mean that apps like Strava and Nike run will also need to be upgraded to support Android Health or lose functionality.
