New Fitbit devices will need to be linked to a Google account next year:
Starting next year, you'll only be able to activate newly released Fitbit models using a Google account. It doesn't come as a surprise for Google's services to become more intertwined with Fitbit's fitness devices after the tech giant acquired the latter for $2.1 billion in 2021. But now, we have a timeline for when Fitbit accounts will no longer be essential. As spotted by 9to5Google, Fitbit has revealed in its help page that it will launch support for Google accounts in 2023. Signing up for Fitbit and activating new devices will require the use of a Google account after that.
[...] Fitbit says its parent company made binding commitments not to use your health and wellness data for ads and will keep that information separate from what it does send to advertisers. The tech giant had insisted from the time it announced the acquisition that it will not be using Fitbit data for ad targeting. In 2020, it formally made the commitment to the European Commission to ward off an antitrust probe.
Also see: Google will start assimilating Fitbit accounts next year
The closest experience we have to these major account migrations is the Google handling of Nest accounts in 2019. That was (and still is) a very bumpy road. After years of coexistence following Google's Nest acquisition in 2014, Google decided to kill Nest accounts after five years and migrate everyone to a Google account. You weren't forced to switch, but not switching only meant a slow death of your account, since you weren't allowed to add new devices and wouldn't get any new features. The account move ended up changing a lot about how Nest works and what Nest works with, introducing regressions like the loss of location-based thermostat control for several months, breaking existing compatibility with third-party apps, and the death of the "Works with Nest" ecosystem. This also marked the end of Google's siloing of Nest data from all of Google's other data collection.
[...] So far, the only difference we've seen from the Google/Fitbit team-up is the Fitbit branding giving way to "Fitbit by Google" branding. If we follow history's example and assume Google doesn't learn from its mistakes, Fitbit's transition maps very nicely to Nest's. We imagine the Fitbit app and website being hit with the same "not invented here" stick and Google Fit taking over as the new Fitbit companion app (Google Fit no longer has a functional website). Fitbit has a lot of integration with other services, but that will probably need to be transitioned to some Google API like the Google Fit API instead. Naturally, that will involve some functionality surviving, some functionality being completely lost, and some developers being unwilling to make the jump and re-code previously working integrations. Buckle up!
Looks like I'll be done with fitbit soon. Anyone have other recommendations for decent fitness trackers?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday September 28 2022, @10:53PM (3 children)
Google is interested in tracking everything you do to monetize what they know about you.
Oh well... At least it's only silly fitness data. Nothing that could be linked to important health information, that you wouldn't want a giant for-profit big data company to know about and sell to, say, insurance companies. Oh wait [health.google]...
Are you scared by Google yet? Cuz ya know, it's kind of getting to late to do anything about them...
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2022, @11:22PM (2 children)
It's not a big thing, just create a spam catching account with no (or false) personal info
(Score: 5, Informative) by MostCynical on Wednesday September 28 2022, @11:45PM (1 child)
Facebook knows all about everyone who knows someone who is on Facebook, because they post about their friends and friends' movements
Not much different to google, tracking your search history and internet habits.. and reading your emails, tracking your device location, and, now, tracking your fitness..
so.. your fake account has the same information if you use the same device - the IP (unless you are very careful with VPNs), your geographic location (again, can be spoofed, but your have to be even more careful). and they are probably checking your device MAC, power usage, screen resolution...
then there is "2FA" which is further tying phone numbers to your account - so burner phones which are also obfuscated.. noting that 2FA won't work if your purported locations don't 'match'.
spoofing is far from trivial.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday September 29 2022, @05:21PM
This is the same depressing line of thought that lead me to create a Facebook account. Do not follow into the dark side. The only cookies they have are served to your browser.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday September 28 2022, @11:00PM (4 children)
Yeah: a notebook and a pen you lazy bum.
I keep mine at the gym, have done for the past 35 years and it takes 20 seconds to jot down what I did and the calories the machines think I've burnt before hitting the shower. How hard can it be?
(Score: 4, Touché) by c0lo on Thursday September 29 2022, @12:21AM (1 child)
How hard what? Jotting down, burning calories or hitting the shower? (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Thursday September 29 2022, @05:48AM
The rest sounds sensible, but that "calorie burning" part looks awfully time consuming and generally superfluous.
(Score: 5, Informative) by mhajicek on Thursday September 29 2022, @07:51AM
From what I hear, Garmin has options to have a fitness tracker that talks only to your phone, and doesn't send data over the internet. I'm strongly considering getting one.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 29 2022, @09:32PM
Or just have good genes and don't get polio. Some of my ancestors lived in to their 90s at a time when healthcare was not very good at all, except for my paternal grandmother. She got polio and it made it difficult for her to walk. I think that's why she died younger.
Not really a problem now. Don't get Covid though. That's a problem.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bobmorning on Thursday September 29 2022, @09:48AM
Got a Fit bit Challenger watch as a gift from my health insurance provider for getting my annual physical. i used it daily until Google made the acquisition.... the watch went on eBay.
Haven't missed it since.
(Score: 4, Touché) by HammeredGlass on Thursday September 29 2022, @05:35PM (1 child)
We need to burn these fuckers into the ground and bury the ashes in an undisclosed location.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Thursday September 29 2022, @10:40PM
I disagree very much. The location should be fully disclosed so we can continue to defecate on their remains for centuries to come.