As a data-junkie, I love a fitness tracker. After years with smartwatches, the Fitbit Air marks my return to fitness trackers, and I love it.
So much of it is like I remember from previous fitness trackers — but there’s one big difference that’s made the Air feel very new. That difference is the AI Coach.
If you’ve been looking into the AI Coach, you’re likely aware that it’s caught some flak recently. I can understand those viewpoints. But for me, the Coach has proven so helpful that it’s replaced a bunch of apps I used to use.
I reviewed the Fitbit Air, and it (almost) completely won me over
Your next fitness tracker won’t have a screen, but it will have AI
Goodbye, calorie trackers
I’m so happy I never had to track calories when phone apps didn’t exist, because calorie-counting apps make it way easier than it would be otherwise.
But as much as calorie-tracking apps made the process easier, it’s still not easy.
Digging through menus to find the exact food you want to track isn’t hard, but it tests your determination. It can be long-winded, especially if you don’t have a barcode to scan or an obvious way to know exactly what was in your meal.
Speaking from experience, it’s not hard. But it is tiresome, and it’s ten times harder if you don’t have much free time.
Before, I might have entertained the idea of one of those meal plans that sends you packaged meals with exact calories and macros, but now, I have the Coach, so I don’t need to.
All I do to log my meal is open Coach through my Google Health Premium widget, type or say what I’ve eaten, and let Coach do the hard part. It is logged in to the right meal and has somewhat accurate calorie counts.
Coach can sometimes get calories wrong. But most of the time, it’s in the right ballpark, and that’s good enough for me when I want to hit a chunky calorie deficit.
Losing weight is hard, but Coach takes some of the bothersome aspects out of calorie counting.
Sayonara, workout apps
I’ve tested several fitness trackers, so I know how many fitness apps work. And a lot of them aren’t great for planning training plans.
Don’t get me wrong, they’ll make a great training plan for you. It’ll be tuned to your specific level, and you’ll be able to specify which days you want to work out.
But when life gets in the way, and you can’t hit one of those scheduled workouts, can you move them easily? In my experience, it’s usually easier to make an entirely new plan.
Coach doesn’t have that problem.
It’s raining, so you don’t want to run? No problem. Coach has another workout you can do indoors.
Been too busy to hit your workout today? It’ll shift the schedule so you can do it later in the week.
Hurt your wrist? It can take that into account. It’ll scrub your dumbbell workout and change your focus to your legs.
It’ll bump dates and plans as needed, and it’s easy to get it to change things up in a moment.
The initial training plans are good, too.
It’ll ask you if you have any fitness goals you’re working towards, and it’ll build a plan around that, and take into account any equipment you have.
I don’t just mean running distance goals either. My Coach is currently building up my fitness base so I can start Muay Thai classes.
The important thing is that Coach is flexible and adaptable in a way that most fitness apps aren’t.
Most apps don’t know how to deal with a missed session because life gets in the way. And that means they’re not great for casual athletes or learners. They’re just not flexible enough for real life.
Coach is, and it does it very well.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, recipe apps
Making a meal isn’t hard when you know what you’re doing, and I’m not saying I’ve given all of my cognitive faculties over to my new AI overlord, but it is helpful to have an assistant when it comes to putting a meal together.
Coach has been helping me increase my protein and fiber intake. Upping your fiber is usually fairly easy. Eat brown rice instead of white, and eat more fruit and cereals — but getting enough protein? That can be difficult, especially as a vegan.
I need all the help I can get there, and Coach is a big help for finding easy protein sources. I can tell it what I have in the fridge, or what needs to be eaten, and it’ll throw together a recipe for me to follow.
I can expand the prompt to include which methods I have to cook with. I currently lack pots and pans, but I have an air fryer and a rice cooker, and it can work around that limitation.
I could have figured this out myself, and it’s not a million miles away from what I’d been thinking I could have. Still, on a busy or stressful day, being able to take some element of bother away is very helpful.
The Coach isn’t for everyone, but it’s definitely for me
If there was one word I’d use to describe the Coach, it’s “casual.”
You’ll often get better results by using dedicated apps. MyFitnessApp is definitely a better calorie-counting app. A true fitness app will probably, in the long run, get better fitness results. Recipe apps will give you an easy catalog of recipes to call on.
Still, the Google Health Premium AI Coach is just easier.
It’s the first time I’ve seen the advantage of chatbot interfaces. Using prompts is easier than using a menu. It’s faster, too.
But at the same time, the flaws are obvious. It can be inaccurate, especially where calories are concerned. When it gets things wrong, it can be more difficult to fix than it would be with a traditional interface.
The chirpiness can get irritating, especially as a Brit.
Oh, and it tends to hang on to things a little too long. It kept asking me how my ankle was feeling days after I told it I was fully healed.
I’m aware of all that, but I keep using Coach.
Why? Because I’m a dad with two young girls, and I work a busy job. It’s hard enough to find time to cook at the end of the day, never mind planning when I’m going to work out, track my calories, or make a meal plan.
Dedicated athletes will find more in other apps and trackers. But there are plenty of people like me, and Coach is for them. It’s certainly for me. I love it, warts and all.
8.5/10
- Battery Life
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7 days
- Health sensors
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Optical heart rate, 3-axis accelerometer, temperature sensor
- Dimensions
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35 x 17 x 8.3mm (Module)
- Water Resistance
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50 meters
