Category: Google Fit

While there are dozens of health & fitness apps available for Android, Google’s own Google Fit has slowly but steadily been growing up.  The app was very basic in the early days but as Android Wear 2.0 was released earlier this year, the Fit app became far more useful and helpful in tracking not only your fitness goals, but getting injected data from other apps like Sleep for Android and MyFitnessPal.  It also gained things like tracking your heart rate (assuming you have a compatible Android Wear watch) during workouts as well as elevation changes for certain types of workouts like running, biking or skiing.

One of the best features of Google Fit is that you can setup multiple goals within the app, track them, and even have them as a widget on your Home screen on your phone.  It is a feature that often goes unnoticed but it is powerful as you can keep track of virtually any goal you desire to meet your own health and fitness goals.

In this How To I will show you how to create multiple goals within Google Fit and how to add them as a widget to your Home screen.  My assumption is that you have Google Fit installed so if you don’t, go get it from the Play Store before continuing.

A new update to Google Fit for Android is rolling out with several new features and enhancements.  The update is version 1.73 for those keeping score at home and most of the updates are aimed at improving your workout experience and summaries.

The most visible change in the update is the redesigned workout mode and you can now review summaries of past activities on your Android Wear device.  With Android Wear devices, you can now hear spoken announcements while you are running too.

Sleep is a critical part of any healthy lifestyle.  Getting the proper amount of restful sleep not only helps with your psychological wellness but also has other health benefits when it comes to general well being and fitness.  Sadly, most Americas struggle to get the proper amount of sleep each night or have poor quality of sleep.  Sleep as Android is an app that allows you to measure your sleep, the quality of that sleep, and integrate that data with apps like Google Fit.  By having the app running on your phone next to you as you sleep, it will track your sleep cycles, see trends and even record noises as you sleep to see if you are snoring or, worse, suffering from Sleep Apnea.

Sleep as Android, however, is so much more.  It can serve as your alarm clock, can play soothing sounds to help you relax and get to sleep and gently wake you up in the morning.  It is an all-in-one app for your sleeping.  I’ve been using the app since the beginning of 2017 as I am focusing on making sure I get the right amount of sleep each day.  It has been an eye opening app for me and has become a daily part of my life as I try to live a healthy – and rested – lifestyle.  Here’s my review.

To help you keep track of your exercise goals, Google has announced a new integration between Google Calendar and Google Fit.  The change is behind the scenes and once it rolls out to everyone, you can track your exercising in Google Fit and it will automatically mark your time slot for exercising in Google Calendar as “done”.  It is a nice and easy way to keep track of your exercise routine while making sure it is built into your daily schedule.

Goal tracking in Google Calendar is not new.  It has been there since April of last year and allows you to track anything from exercise to reading time to learning a new language.  The goals are quite handy actually and the app is smart enough to look at what is on your calendar and schedule that goal in a time period where you don’t have other activities.  You can also tell it to set a time for the goal in the morning, afternoon or evening for even more refinement.  Now, on your exercise goals, you can tie them in with Google Fit so when you complete an exercise there, it update Calendar automatically as the goal being complete.

Last summer I wrote a review of Google Fit and concluded that while it was a good start for a health & fitness app, it had a lot of growing up to do in order to compete with other apps and solutions out there.  That growing up process has been happening and happening quickly.  Over the course of the last couple of months, Google has added a significant amount of features and functionality to the app along with integrating with other apps like MyFitnessPal.  The latest update makes tracking your exercise easier by allowing you to do it from your smartwatch and not having to touch your phone.

The updated version of Google Fit is build 1.56.14 for those keeping score at home and it is available now in the Google Play Store.  When you update to this version, if you have a connected smartwatch, the app on it will be updated as well to allow you to start tracking activities.  The app is free of course and if you already have the app installed, the update will come to you via an OTA update.

Google Fit – Free – Download Now

When I posted my review of Google Fit several months ago, I pointed out that while it was a good app that had a nice, clean interface, it lacked some of the features that would make it a true must-have fitness app.  The latest update to the app, which is rolling out to the Google Play Store now, closes a lot of those gaps by bringing a much tighter integration with other fitness and nutrition apps.  The result is that Google Fit becomes a portal for all your nutrition and exercise information.

The update is version 1.55.44-000 for those keeping score at home and while it has been released to the Play Store, it could be a day or two before you see the OTA update if you have it installed.  The first thing that is new in this build is the real-time tracking of exercises.  If you go on walks, runs or bike rides, you can now have Google Fit track that exercise for you and it will integrate with Google Maps so you can see where you went on your activity.  To do this, there is a new Start Activity option in the app’s menu.

Google Fit for Android – Free – Download Now